Welcoming In The Demons
by Akky-chan
Summary: At Harry's 4th year at Hogwarts, the triwizard tournament takes place, but not everyone participating is a wizard. Who are these exorcists anyway? DGM HP x-over, T for violence & ocasional language. DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

The Great Hall suddenly burst with conversation at Dumbledore's words, they were to

The Great Hall suddenly burst with conversation at Dumbledore's words, they were to

host THE Triwizard Tournament, them, little old Hogwarts (even though there was really

nothing little about it)! Dumbledore cleared his throat to reclaim their attention; the hall

was silenced even faster than usual with the promise of more information about the

tournament.

"Though the Triwizard Tournament first originated as a competition between the three

largest European wizarding schools, however, this year, during the tournament, we will

be welcoming a third school into our doors," Dumbledore gave the students an unusually

hard look, "This third school is not of wizarding, it is a school that specializes in the

teaching of exorcism," Murmurs broke over the crowd, Harry and Ron turned to

Hermione, who bore a stunned look on her face, and was mouthing one word over and

over: 'Exorcism'.

"Hermione, what's exorcism?" Ron and Harry asked, utterly bemused, Hermione looked

at them, for once not shocked at their lack of knowledge.

"Exorcism is the act of cleansing a person of evil spirits, the people who perform

exorcism are exorcists, but people who could effectively perform exorcism were so rare,

that it was thought the teaching of it had been abandoned hundreds of years ago.

Apparently, the ability to learn exorcism could appear at any age, and some gained the

ability faster than others, but exorcists were supposedly unstable, and their methods

looked more like murder than cleansing!" Hermione looked as though she was smelling

something rotten, Harry and Ron, were taken aback, Hermione had obviously read

something bad concerning exorcism, and she was predisposed to dislike exorcists, so

unlike her, it was frightening.

Dumbledore had started speaking again, now about the history of the tournament, but

students who had either stumbled across books that told of exorcism or knew something

or other about the subject still whispered to their neighbors, explaining exorcism.

Hermione too, dropped her voice to a whisper.

"The abilities to perform exorcism usually appeared in some sort of item or weapon, but

there were supposed to be people who used parts of their bodies to exorcize, usually the

latter would be highly unstable, maybe have alternate personalities when they were

exorcizing, from what I read about them, they sound horrible…" Hermione looked back

up at Dumbledore, Harry and Ron took the hint and turned their attention back to their

headmaster.

"The heads and contenders of Beauxbatons, Drumstrang and Katsura Academy, will be

arriving in October and the selection of the four champions will take place on Halloween

imperial judge will decide who the four champions are to be, the winner of the

tournament will…"

"Katsura… doesn't that mean like, Moon or something?" a nearby Gryffindor asked her

friend.

"Yeah… it means Moon in Japanese…" Her friend replied.

'Moon…' Harry was thinking, 'nighttime… darkness…' when Dumbledore aroused

them from their thoughts.

"Before we go to bed tonight, I want you all to realize something," Dumbledore paused

and slowly looked around at his students, "Our foreign guests will be different from us,

some more different than others, some, you may be tempted to avoid totally, but please,

be aware that we are all human, and we all have great differences, even if you feel

inclined to dislike one of our guests at first, please reconsider and try to accept them,

because the bonds we make with others will come back to aid you one day, so do not

judge the guests by what school they come from or what they look like, get to know

them before you judge them, and with that, bedtime! Chop, chop!"

The loud screeching of chairs echoed around the dining hall as chairs were pushed back

and students left for their houses, talking excitedly about the tournament and what the

schools who visited would be like. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George stayed for

a few moments afterwards, glaring at Dumbledore for setting an age limit, talking about

what they would do with the money and soon, they did make their way to Gryffindor's

tower. Slowly, Harry drifted to sleep, wondering why Dumbledore would've invited

exorcists, people who sounded like they should be left alone, into Hogwarts. Harry

figured he would probably never know.

000—On the day of Arrival… Black Order About to enter the ark

"Komui, explain to me why we're doing this again," Allen said, very politely for a

demand. He opened the way to the ark though, as he was asked to, but he still stared

questioningly at the exorcist's supervisor.

Komui sighed, "I'll brief you in detail on the way, but for now, we are going to the

school of Hogwarts, namely an academy of magic," The exorcists stared at him. There

was a whole team of them there, unlike the standard two-person units they usually were

in when undertaking a mission.

Lavi, Kanda, Krory Miranda, Lenalee, Allen, and General Cross (much to Allen's

dismay), and Komui all surrounded the entrance to the ark. It surprised Komui that they

did not contradict him by saying magic wasn't real, of course, they probably had trained

themselves to believe nothing was impossible, such as having one of your friends or

yourself be able to operate a centuries old ark that belonged to Noah himself, and

stealing it from it's owner by playing a piano and stopping a download, then bringing it

to a gothic castle above the cloud layer. After such experiences, things like schools for

learning magic must've seemed quite sensible... Poor kids…

"This school is hosting a tournament between three schools, you all are entering as a

fourth party, and as exorcists," oh, THIS is what made the exorcists amazed, they were

use to hiding their identities as exorcists on long-term mission such as this. Being

known exorcists was a new thing, even though some people could guess they were

exorcists because of their uniforms. "However, you are not to speak of the Akuma,

Innocence, Generals, Finders, or anything related to the order, you are going undercover

as students and teachers who study exorcism, not as soldiers. So act as students. The

headmaster of the school was the one who called us out. Because of the publicity this

competition is getting, Dumbledore, is sure that something is going to happen at some

point, and that is where we come in," Komui looked at the exorcists, who were taking

everything in, so very professional, it made him sad.

"There have been cases of people disappearing, it is very rare, but it is happening. It is

possible that Akuma are involved, but as for a second reason…" Komui's voice got

very small, "We wish to strengthen our ties to the outside world, as you know, our

methods seem more like murder than anything else, so there have been bad rumors

going around about exorcists, but we want to be seen as human, not as murderers, so try

to make friends, with the students, with the teachers, with anyone who seems to be able

to accept us…"

"We destroy to save, we don't kill for the sake of killing, we would rather not kill at

all," No one was but so surprised when Allen spoke. Out of all of them, he hated being

called a murderer the most.

"Right," Komui said, smiling, maybe his smile wasn't as magical as Allen's, but it

seemed to help, they all relaxed a bit and looked more at ease with the prospect of going

on this mission. Komui brought his voice back up and stopped acting so worried, but

more like the excited child they knew he was at heart, "But while we are there, do not

take out your weapons unless needed, and Allen, don't tell people you're cursed, that

might complicate things a bit," One by one, they stepped into the ark, Komui was still

acting trigger-happy with his words, and was still talking and starting to explain the

world they were about to enter, and the tournament they would compete in.

000—Hogwart's gates…Outside the lunch hall, about to enter

Komui had explained everything while they had searched for the door to Hogwarts.

(Allen seemed to be able to find most anything in the ark, amazingly, so it hadn't taken

too long.) He had explained the rules of the tournament, the language the wizards had

created (such as 'muggle') some of the common magical creatures, the sport wizards

enjoyed (it was called Quidditch if he remembered right) and most other things they

would need to know in order to fit in with the wizards, including something about another

boy who was made famous because of a cursed scar he got when he was a child. Komui

had simply skimmed over this, but Allen had been very interested in the subject.

Apparently the boy was a student in the school they were visiting, Hogwarts. Allen was

wondering if he would be able to meet him, and if he did… well, he wouldn't break his

promise to Komui and tell about his curse, but, he thought it would be interesting to meet

someone in a similar situation to his.

Allen looked around the corridor in the gothic castle, it had the strange familiarity that

most likely all gothic palaces would give him now. He knew his friends most likely had

that same feeling of familiarity.

"We're going to enter after the Drumstrang students when Dumbledore announces us,"

Komui said, trotting up to the group of exorcists. "And remember, we're the Katsura

Academy of Exorcism," He reminded them of their fake school's name. At first they had

asked why they got that name, their reply was 'First thing that came to our mind that

wasn't overly dark,' and that made enough sense to them.

The exorcists, should anyone ask, were to say that the school was very small, so the

students were separated into groups, Miranda was Lenalee's teacher, Krory was Lavi's

and Kanda was doing mostly independent study. It was obvious who Allen's teacher

would be, and he had resigned to his fate quietly, knowing Cross would not have been

any kinder even though he had been separated so long from his pupil.

Dumbledore's booming and welcoming voice penetrated through the doors and into the

hallway. Though they had only met Dumbledore once (they arrives a bit early, and had to

make a re-entrance, but stopped to talk a little, and no one but Dumbledore knew they

were there!) but all of them knew they liked him, even Kanda, even though he would

never admit it.

The two wizard schools entered as they were bade, and greeted by applause from the

Hogwart's students. Soon, it was their turn…

"Now," said Dumbledore's voice, "I am pleased to welcome our third and final guest for

the year, though only three official students could come unfortunately, please allow me to

welcome Katsura Academy into our walls!"

They held their breath as the large doors opened, revealing the masses of students. The

younger exorcists prepared their inner student, and walked behind Komui, their new head

of school, and walked into the grand hall.

Yay!! It took forever to get a story up T.T

Okay, first Fanfic on this sight, but I'd love cc!! I NEED SOME CC!!

Okay…. This was started a while ago, and I posted most of it already on my dA.

Oh, and I'm posting this in the HP dept. cuz I want to see if I can get some more DGM

fans out there cruel and underhanded means, I know, but I cant help it ; I love

DGM, so here's a rundown for anyone who doesn't know it:

In the closing years of the 19th century, mysterious events began to occur, surrounded by

fog (yes, I stole that from the opening chapters, now shut up.) the Millennium Earl, the

creator of Akuma is once again, after a 7,000 year wait, waging war against the earth,

and it's last line of defense: The Exorcists of the Black Order who travel the world in

search of innocence, the cristalized power of god, which is used to defeat Akuma, the

Earl's weapons, made from the souls of deceased people, and the bodies of the mourners

who wanted them back….

And yesh, Allen is the main chara an emo, who's cursed (you'll find out later…) and

has a F AWESOME WEAPON XDDD…

R&R!

(don't kill me!!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay…it's been a while… I didn't realize this story was actually any good but… okay**

**Warning: I kinda have problems with angst, I'll try to save most of it for other fics, but… yeah, most of this is pre-written and so… may be a little editing**

**This one's short because… I don't remember, but it's all descriptions. Please deal with it for a bit, because I wasn't (and still am not) that great a writer when this was done so…**

**I own nothing, I just live across the lake from the order**

CHAPTER 2

000—Welcome the Newcomers Great Hall, entering…

Murmurs filled the hall the moment the exorcist's entered, even though at the same time there was great applause, no one could have expected –in their wildest dreams mind you—that the exorcists would've been as mismatched as they were, Harry reasoned.

One boy looked Japanese, with long flowing black hair, he looked most serious about them, another was a redhead with an eyepatch, and a green headband, he looked at ease with himself more than anything, totally against previous thoughts of the exorcists.

The third boy what looked school aged, had bright white hair, and a long red scar down his left eye. He looked nervous, but mostly at ease with himself, though Harry noted he was walking very closely to the redhead and another girl about his age maybe.

The girl, had short, messy, black hair, not so different from Harry's except hers was clipped closer to her head, as though it had been burned off. Harry couldn't help but noticed she had the shortest hair out of all of them… and she seemed to be comforting her companions, they all seemed to group around her and the white haired boy.

There were five adults, one girl, and the rest boys. One of them, who was leading the mixed group, was the head of school, and the only person not wearing black coat.

He didn't pay much attention to the adults, he was more interested in the people who would be competing in the tournament. He turned to Ron and Hermione. "First impression?" He asked.

"Not what we thought it would be…" They both said. Harry looked back at the newcomers. Dumbledore was embracing their school head like an old friend. The students were looking shyly around the large room, the redhead motioning for the black-haired girl and white haired boy to look up at the ceiling, he could see them draw breath as they saw the sky reflected on it and thousands of candle's floating above. It seemed everyone had that reaction when they first saw the Grand Hall's ceiling. It was just a reaction.

Harry almost laughed, they weren't so different from the first years, both uniforms were even black… now that he thought about it, their uniforms were different, the girl had short-shorts, and redhead had a jacket and chaps, the white haired boy had… it was hard to describe what he had really… his sleeves looked twisted because of a thin zipper, and his shirt came long and was pressed in by a belt so it almost looked like a skirt if you used your imagination.

The three other boys had long waist coats, two of them with high collars, and the older girl had something similar to the redhead.

"They're going to sit over here…" Ron whispered to Harry and Hermione, both of whom looked at him, as though he was inviting them or something, his rely to their looks was, "Drumstrang's already at Slytherin, Beauxbaton's at Hufflepuff, and we're the closest table, they're coming over here," And they did, no sooner had Ron spoken the words, then the small group started moving their way.

"Don't worry, I don't think they're actually that bad now that I see them…" Hermione whispered.

"Yeah, but I wrote a letter to Dad and asked a little about exorcism, said I heard the term and wanted to know a bit, and he wrote back and told me all about these things that exorcists were supposed to have done in the whole past few centuries, and you should have seen the things on that list.


	3. Chapter 3

000— Small Notices Inside the Great Hall, about to eat…

It's a double post, so go and look at ch 2 before looking here, okay? Okay.

I own nothing, I just happen to be here

000— Small Notices Inside the Great Hall, about to eat…

The small group of exorcists walked to the Gryffindor table, while their headmaster took a seat next to Dumbledore. After sitting down, Harry noticed one of two of the exorcists, the black haired girl, and the white haired boy, glanced sideways at their head of school, who gave them a small smile, before turning aside and looking at Dumbledore, who stood and spoke as silence fell:

"Good evening, ladies, gentleman, ghosts, and most particularly, guests!" Dumbledore beamed at the students, foreign and usual. "I take pleasure in welcoming you into Hogwart's doors, and hope your stay will be quite enjoyable."

A girl from Beauxbatons, who was still clutching her muffler, gave what was unmistakably a laugh.

Hermoine hissed at her, "No one's forcing you to stay, you know," bristling.

"The tournament will officially begin after the feast," Dumbledore continued, "Now, please eat, drink, make yourself at home, and hopefully several friends," no one but Harry noticed Komui glanced at the exorcists almost worriedly.

000—Eating and Info Inside the Great Hall, eating and talking…

The exorcists had to admit to themselves, they were very good at acting only slightly surprised by the food that suddenly appeared in front of them, and they did not wait very long before they began to fill their plates full of food (except for Kanda, who went for some soba and tempura that appeared suspiciously close to him), some of which were obviously foreign.

"What the heck is that?" asked a nearby redhead. Allen looked up to see what he was pointing at. It was some sort of shellfish stew next to a large steak-and-kidney pudding.

"Bouillabaisse," said a girl with long, curly brown hair.

"Bless you."

"It's FRENCH, I had it two summers ago when I was on holiday," she replied to that little comment angrily, "It's very good, actually."

"I'll take your word for it," The redhead said, reaching for some black pudding, at the same time as Lenalee. They both pulled their arms back at the same time.

"I'm sorry, you can have it…" Lenalee said to the boy, a little shyer then she would've said it normally, of course, this was not that normal for them.

"Oh, thanks," The redhead helped himself, ignoring the brown-haired girl's glare at his lack of tact.

"What's your name?" She asked, hoping to make up for her friend's manners.

"Uh, I'm Lenalee, and you are?" Lenalee said, once again, not as bravely as usual. It might've been genuine shyness, or maybe she thought most people would've been a little not-so forward as she usually was.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the brown-haired girl said. Allen was still paying attention, not trying to hide it as much now, in hopes he wouldn't have to try so hard to make a friend (given his luck and all, his hopes were not high unless he had help…a LOT of help). "He's Ron Weasley," she said, pointing to the redhead, who was looking up from his pudding at the sound of his name.

"And I'm Harry," said a boy with messy black hair that somehow reminded him of Lenalee's hair, of course, Lenalee's was shorter still… It hadn't grown back much ever since the level 3 Akuma has burned it off almost completely.

Allen gave the boy his attention, Komui had mentioned someone named Harry, something about being cursed when he was young…

"It's nice to meet you…" Harry said, looking at Lenalee first, before his gaze traveled to Allen, "Who're you?" He asked.

"Ah, Allen Walker, it's nice to meet you," Allen said, he knew at least, his shyness was genuine, given he was not good at first impressions. Never really had been, really, they were lasting for sure, but did not always leave the imprint he would've preferred.

"Nice to meet you Allen," said Hermione. The three must've been friends; Hermione was obviously the one who was good at communicating with people. Allen wondered vaguely if this time, his first impression would not be so very bad…

The conversation moved smoothly from there, thanks to Lenalee and Hermione, who were obviously the more social of the two groups of friends. They did most of the talking, and Allen and Harry mostly listened and answered questions of added little comments of their own as the time came, Ron was merely eating and watching the exorcists, with what Allen though were wary eyes, but he must've imagined it, he was hoping that Ron wasn't suspicious of them already. Allen didn't like people not trusting them (even though people often had good reason not to trust them) so Allen made himself believe he was imagining it.

Lavi was talking happily with two other redheads, who Allen couldn't tell apart at all, so they must be twins, and judging by their hair and the freckles, they might've been Ron's brothers. He looked away from Lavi and the twins momentarily and instead found himself being stared at by Harry. Allen almost twitched as he realized Lavi was sitting to his right. That meant his scar was even more visible to Harry then it had been before. Trying to not be suspicious, he moved his hand to flatten his bangs. Maybe he couldn't hide the entire scar, but he had been able to hide his pentacle form most for several years because of his bangs, which had always been long, and perfect for hiding something on one's forehead.

Of course the Order knew about his pentacle, it had been the cause of one of his not-so-great first impressions, that one, in particular, had ended him in a stare-down with Kanda's sword Mugen in front of the gate. He did not blame the Order, they had good reason to try and kill him, even if something like a curse on one's forehead seemed so very trivial, for the person who bears it, it is very important, but a pentacle is not a normal scar-shape, it has a meaning, and that was why he tried to hide it the best he could…

000—Uniforms and Symbols Inside the Great Hall, talking…

Harry looked at the white haired boy a second more before he turned back to Lenalee and Hermione's conversation, but he wasn't really listening. He was thinking over what he'd seen, he had noticed Allen's scar before he knew his name, but hadn't paid it much attention. 'It's probably just a cut he got at some point.' Was what he had thought, but when he had turned to see what the redhead (Harry didn't know what his name was) was doing, Harry had happened to be turned at an angle to see his forehead.

On Allen's forehead was a kind of design. An upside-down star, with a red line that started his scar.

Harry also noted, when Allen noticed Harry looking at his forehead, that he had flattened his bangs, in the same, careful-but-trying-to-be-natural way Harry did, and that only another who did would notice.

Harry also knew from experience, that very, very few people had scars on their foreheads that took a definite shape. His was like a lightning bolt, and he was fairly sure Allen's was called a pentagram or something… it was one of those time he wished he had paid a bit more attention when Hermione pulled out the slightly dark books that they had used many times in order to… do certain things that the rules of the school did not truly approve of… it want that he hadn't paid attention, it was that he tended to zone everything not-relating to the topic at hand out of his mind.

Then he noticed he should be taking part in the conversation to not be so suspicious, Allen had obviously wanted to keep the symbol on his forehead a secret, and Harry (who knew that feeling only too well) obliged.

"Where'd you get your uniforms, I've never seen them before, they must've been expensive," Hermione reeled out another list of questions, which Lenalee answered, using the lies that were either made up on the spot, or taught by Komui before-hand. It was almost sad how good they were at lying…

"Actually our school provides them for us," She lied like a pro, only Allen caught it, but he had his poker face on. No one ever caught him lying, he was better than anyone else at the Order, and sadly, he was the one with the most to hide it seemed. "Our school's very small, so they can afford things like that every now and then."

"Why are they different though? If it's a uniform, it should be the same, right?"

"Our uniforms are kind of personalized." Lenalee gave a fake embarrassed look, "Because we're not really learning magic, we take different courses, and they personalize our uniforms so we can perform our best with them, but they keep the details the same on all of them," When Hermione gave her a confused look, she gave a small sigh and pointed to her left shoulder, at a small silver cross-star like symbol, "This is on all our coats, in the same spot, upper left near the shoulder," Hermione gave a small nod, and continued to stare at the small symbol, as though trying to memorize it.

"What kind of courses do you guys take, anyway?" a voice asked. The foursome spun around to look at Ron, who they had temporarily forgotten about. He had finally looked up from his food, and was looking at the exorcists. He was trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice, but his eyes gave him away, they were narrowed into slits and had a distrusting light in them.

"Well… we don't really have an organized schedule, not like here anyway. If we need to work on something we just work on it until we get better, really," Lenalee lied smoothly.

"As in what do you do?" Ron said, not totally hiding the edge in his voice.

"Depends," Lenalee shrugged, "We each have different teachers, so what we do mostly is up to them…" She looked at Allen, who twitched, "Miranda's my teacher, Krory is Lavi's, Kanda does independent study since he's so good… and Allen… has, well…" her voice trailed away. The three wizards and Lenalee (pityingly) looked at Allen, who twitched more, and seemed to become very small.

Allen mumbled something about pain and debt collectors, Lenalee gave him an embarrassed/pitied look.

"Before you ask, let's just say Allen got the bad end of the stick more than once…" the redhead with the eyepatch and headband intervened. "Just ignore him for a while, he's just lost in nostalgia or trauma," a large grin spread over his face. "Name's Lavi, nice ta' meet you!"

Twenty minutes had passed since the beginning of the feast, and the wizards had learned many lies about the fake school that trained exorcists. The only real truths they now knew were about their uniforms and that a person named Cross was Allen's teacher, that Allen went into trauma whenever his teacher was mentioned, and that the teacher had run off to some bar the moment they had arrived.

Then, Harry noticed the Hagrid was slipping into the Hall from the door behind the teacher's table. He called to him, and Hagrid waved an enormous, bandaged hand back at him.

"Who's that?" Lenalee asked, cutting Hermione off as she was about to ask another question.

"What abou —hmm? Oh, that's Hagrid. He's one of our friends," Hermione explained, ignoring something Ron said about the Skrewts finding Hagrid's fingers were good food. "He's the Care of Magical Creatures teacher… The skrewts are his newest…thing…"

Suddenly, a voice from behind said, "Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?"

The girl from Beauxbation's who had laughed during Dubledore's speech had finally taken her muffler off, revealing long silvery hair that drooped to her waist, two crystal blue eyes and shimmering white skin and teeth.

Ron and Lavi went purple (his headband suddenly had 'STRIKE' written on it in bold letters) Ron tried to speak, Lavi tried not to, the result was a small gurgling sound…

"Yeah, sure, you can have it," Harry said, as Allen pushed the dish towards her.

"You are done wiz et?"

"Yeah... it was delicious…" Ron sighed. Lavi still trying to keep his mouth shut. The girl took the bouillabaisse and returned to her table. Ron muttered hoarsely to a laughing Harry something about the girl being a veela. Hermione gave him some harsh reply, but Harry was now paying attention to the exorcists, or rather Lavi.

Lavi was shaking, clutching his fists and still had 'STRIKE' written on his headband (had it always been there and Harry just hadn't noticed?)… he still looked like he was trying to not say something….

Just then, Allen handed him a small paper bag (where did that come from?) Lavi opened it, bent down, and shouted something into it, or at least Harry thought he shouted, he couldn't really hear anything, he just saw the bag inflate as he breathed into it.

000—It was so very sad…. The teachers table, talking and eating…

Komui was watching the exorcists from the teachers' table. Harry Potter and two other students Komui didn't know the name of were already talking to Allen and Lenalee, while Lavi immediately started talking to the school's main tricksters, so said McGonagall.

He wasn't so worried about Lavi and Kanda, they always were themselves no matter what. Kanda always sulked into corners, and Lavi always was able to make people laugh. Those two would have no problems here.

Lenalee was always social; she had often found it easy to make friends, even if she had to act a little in the beginning, her true self always came through in the end. The only thing he worried about with her was if a boy took a liking to her… but if that happened, the boy would die a painful death. End of his story.

Miranda and Krory would he helped by the younger exorcists and make friends with the teachers. Though they were a bit shaken at times, Miranda was always so kind, and Krory would be fine after he made a friend. After that, they both would try and help as best they could around the school, simple as that.

As for General Cross… he'd stay out of the way, and be flirting with the ladies in the village's pub most of the time unless he came up to the castle every now-and-then to torture Allen…

The one he worried about most was Allen. Sure, Allen was one of the best exorcists, after all, he had faced two noah, killed one, attack the Earl and survived, he had once been given a hole through his heart, his left arm destroyed, and his eye stabbed out, but he was still alive, he was still fighting in their war, he was still smiling.

No, the reason he worried about Allen was because it was Allen. The small boy, was about fifteen, maybe sixteen, it was impossible to know, but he had seen so many things, that even learned people had never seen, he was different, even by exorcist standards. He had tried to save an enemy once, he had said once he didn't consider himself human. He had the symbol of devil's worship on his forehead and a cross of god's power in his arm. He had lost his family at a young age and been mistreated as he grew up.

Now, he had met someone else who had a similar story to his. The boy called Harry Potter, also had a curse that warned of danger, also had a prophecy that predicted destruction, and also had not been allowed to be a child. Also had had his life destroyed by a monster… Now that Allen had met someone in such a similar situation to his, Komui was worried. Allen had kept very quiet about his past. All anyone knew was the basics of his life.

He had been adopted on Christmas day, and lived with traveling entertainers as a clown. When his father died, he was cursed, (for reasons Cross refused to tell, and Allen sure as hell wasn't going to tell them.) immediately after he had been cursed, Cross had found him, and asked him to become an exorcist. For another three years after, Allen had been Cross's disciple. That was when he had come to the order with his master's golem, Timcanpy, who they had left in the ark incase he attracted attention.

Now that someone who's basis of life came so close to his, just as for an age difference, who knew what would happen to Allen's mind? The young boy was far too complex and unstable, but how unstable he was, was a mystery… Allen in all, was a mystery, but there had been time when he had let his unstable side show, and no matter what happened, someone, somewhere, was always left in tears when he was like that.

"Worried about your students Komui?" Dumbledore said softly.

Komui jumped a little, but not enough to cause notice before he looked at Dumbledore. So far, Dumbledore was the person here that he trusted most of all. At the Order, they had trained themselves to not trust anyone except for known allies, and even not so much then, but with Dumbledore… he gave off an aura even more comforting than Allen's smile.

"Yes…" Komui said


	4. Chapter 4

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"And lastly I would like to tell all of you one thing. This tournament is not to be entered on whims, once your name comes out, there is no turning back, so before you place your name in the goblet, please, be ready to see it through to the end." Dumbledore finished his speech on the tournament.

He had explained how to enter, and what was to happen, that their daring, their powers of deduction, their abilities, and their ability to cope with danger.

The exorcists let small grins appear on their faces as the things to be tested had been said, after all, their daring had to be second to none to be able to place themselves on the battlefield as they did every day, their ability to discover a hidden secret, well, that's when having teammates came in truly handy, as they were from everywhere, and had different ideas and could look at things from different angles. As for abilities and coping with danger, they had honed their abilities for the sole purpose of defending, evading, and destroying any possibility of danger. This tournament might not be as stressful as they thought if they could find some way to counter the wizards very flexible range of magic and obstacles that could be given to them.

The silence did not last long after the speech ended. Students from all three, no four schools got up and headed for where they would be sleeping.

"An age line!" one of the redhead twins said to Harry, Hermione, Ron, and his twin. "That should be fooled by an aging potion, shouldn't it? I mean once you have your name in, you'd be laughing an…"

Allen didn't pay much attention to the rest of what he was saying. The 'age line' was what he was thinking about. If it did what it was supposed to do, Allen wasn't sure he would be able to enter. After all, he wasn't even sure he was actually fifteen, much less seventeen, he had strangely become almost eager to participate.

Komui was coming up to them now, smiling at them, and patting Lenalee's head as he came closer. "Did you all make any friends?" he asked quiet enough so only the exorcists could hear.

Lenalee Allen and Lavi gave some small nods. "Yeah, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Fred and George I think," Allen reeled off. Komui gave a small smile to him. 'That's good' he said.

The two groups o different schools made their way to the exit when the Drumstrang school also reached there, just because it was polite, the first party stopped to let the Drumstrang lot through, Karkaroff was about to lead his school through and back to their ship when he stopped and stared at the two other groups letting him pass, or more precisely, Harry.

Karkaroff stared at Harry's forehead for almost a minute before a man who looked as though he'd been carved out of wood by a man with broken arms and (what seemed to be) a mechanical whizzing eye.

Karkaroff gasped and he and the man had a conversation Allen didn't really understand. A rather… upset conversation too, Karkaroff ended up storming away in a huff with his students. The man with the eye-- with the FAKE eye, Allen could not help correcting his thoughts as he himself could be referred to as 'the one with the eye'—turned to Harry and his friends. There was something about this man Allen couldn't really decide on, he had the aura of someone who was slightly deranged, but it must've been his imagination, being how paranoid he had been of late.

The man glanced over at Harry, then looked over to Lenalee, Lavi, Kanda, Komui, Miranda, Krory, and lastly Allen, who once again, casually flattened his bangs, making it look like he was brushing them out of his face when he was only covering his forehead more.

"So Potter, you started hanging out with the black brats, eh?" He said, gruffly, looking at the exorcists with disgust.

"Professor Moody! What's wrong with skin color?" Hermione gasped at their teacher.

"Not talking about skin color," He snarled unpleasantly, somehow Allen knew, this man would not be one of those few who would accept their reality and humanity here, but rather see them as monsters… "I meant these brats here with the damned rose-crosses on them," he looked hard at the exorcists…. And Allen's forehead and left arm, with that strange whizzing eye of his.

Allen knew that if you had a strange eye you could see all kinds of things, but usually you were limited to a certain field of sight that you could access when you wanted, but if his eye had some ability, and judging from where he was looking….

Oh, crap….

What if that eye could see through things…. Like bangs and gloves?

000—Secrets and Lies Trying to exit the great hall…

"Curse brats…" Moody muttered, "Always end up causing trouble, now they found a real devil and made him one of them…" Harry caught every word, and had no clue of the meaning in them. 'Curse brats?' was he talking about the exorcism they were studying? 'Real devil?' what the heck did that mean?

Questions bounced around Harry's mind. 'Black brats', which must've had to do with their uniform, but the Hogwarts' uniforms was also black, so it must have meant something a little more than that.

Hermione also had a curious look on his face, and Ron looked like he smelled something bad. They too had heard what Moody had said, but were unable to ask questions if they were going to, their teacher had stomped off after he had muttered something about imaginary demons.

Harry watched the exorcist's movements carefully, suddenly remembering the suspicion and distrust that had swooped in upon their announcement of arrival.

Lenalee looked a little uneasy, Lavi and Kanda's faces were unreadable. The girl with short, curly brown hair looked like she was going to commit suicide, and the man with a lock of white hair mixing with his black hair looked questioningly at the place where Moody had been just a moment before, as though he was disgusted by the idea he had dared to question one of his students (Harry assumed that the devil Moody was talking about was a student).Allen, however, looked visibly shaken for an instant, but then it disappeared, as though his fear of something Harry didn't know of had never been there.

Komui looked worried, over what, Harry decided he didn't want to know. He didn't like the suspicions he had suddenly been entertaining. He had taken a liking to the exorcists over the time they had talked at diner, and did not want them to lose faith in a friend so quickly, and something told him he would need his friends very, very soon.

They waited for the Drumstrang lot to move out, before actually leaving the Hall themselves, still, Harry's eyes never left the exorcists. Who were now back to their care-free act.

Act.

000—My Color Walking around the school at night…

Allen was nervous now, only slightly, but seeing one person defend Harry, then the next moment call the exorcists 'black brats' was unnerving to him. It made him realize just how much exorcists were either feared or hated by those who knew what they were, but had not known a little about one of them, personally.

Allen had once known a girl named Moa; her sister had died in a tragedy as a cross had fallen on her while she was playing the organ in church. Moa was a police officer, and had found Allen at the scene of a murder of a cop. He wasn't surprised that she didn't trust him, his story was full of wholes anyway ("Master disappeared… somewhere in India I think…" it was so embarrassing to remember…).

But Allen had unearthed and exposed what had also happened to her sister's husband, the pasture, Moa had grown to trust him, and let him send her sister and her husband, the priest, on, to where she said she hoped was heaven.

He walked down the silent shadow filled halls, thinking hard on things most people might not. Of course, most people weren't like him, not even his family, the exorcists were like him, and in truth, he was so very grateful for that.

The old castle was somehow comforting to him. Probably because it reminded him of the Black Order, or as he was now supposed to refer to it as, Katsura Academy, no matter what, he couldn't get use to the name. His home would always be the Black Order, not some strange Academy that was made up, so he wouldn't call it as such in his mind.

Hell, Allen had never been to school in his life, he learned while working. Like he had learned to be a clown, learned to stay alive when you were on your own, learned to cope with the feelings of the darkest shades, learned to be an exorcist, learned to atone, learned to feel love so strong you destroy what causes it, learned to relearn everything…

Allen continued to stumble through the dark of the castle. Though there were many people, many ghosts patrolling the castle, Allen passed by them and continued on easily, even though it was almost one-in-the-morning, Allen was awake and alert. This was just as easy as walking through the Order at night, even though many people from the science department were always wide awake, and several finders who ran around continuing to give reports always roamed the Halls, Allen had never been spotted on his nighttime excursions. Never.

And sometimes he just needed to get out of his bed, and his cramped room, and once, he had managed to get out of the actual building. It had been so refreshing, midnight at his home, with the cool air and the bright moon, white, not black, white. The black moon had been a nightmare; it had had to be a nightmare. After all, real moons didn't sink into lakes…

He turned down this hall, and wandered down that corridor, and continued to meander and scout out the school. Even with his horrible sense of direction, he could find his way out of the castle. When he slipped out of the large entrance doors, big doors were easy to get past, especially when they were unlocked.

Allen slowly made his way out on the lawn, feeling like a ghost almost, letting the wind beat him and the sound on the night overlap his thoughts, which he was not even trying to hear anymore. He simply took in his surroundings, without thinking of anything at all. Silver shining lake, mist, overlapping the trees of the great forest he could see clearly down where his path could take him. A castle behind him, he didn't pay it attention before.

His eyes clouded over as he took in the grayish, smokey, empty blackness of the landscape. It was so sweet and calm, unlike anything else.

He took another step forward; he had taken the short rest he had desired in the night, so he called the ark. No one would hear him enter, no one had heard him go. Like pieces of shattered glass, the ark seemed to be pulled down from the sky, merely broken pieces of shining light, leading up like a ladder for several feet above his head, and a bright number, like on a clock, '14' was proudly at the top of the ladder. 14, Destroyer of Time, The Musician, he fit all these titles, but he still liked Allen Walker best.

When in the ark, he asked for the Piano room, his room, and fell asleep on the bed he had asked for, by the piano that had started it. Made him the Musician. The musical score was still there, Allen had never touched it, never removed it from its place.

The ark was his, how he had gotten it, was a mystery, an enigma. But the ark belonged to 'Allen' and it seemed like he could call up any room in the ark, or make new rooms with anything in them if he asked the ark. He had 'asked' for rooms for his friend, Lenalee, Lavi, Kanda, Komui, Krory, Miranda, and forced his Master to return to the ark, at the promise of a room with Russian Vodka. Allen was sorely tempted to seal the room and leave his master in there, but that would kill his master, and Allen Walker, would never kill again.

As he faded to sleep, he undid the clasp of his gloved hands. He thought he should've taken the gloves off in the first place, and let his hands breath once in a while, but no matter how good he was at sneaking, there was always a chance of him getting caught. The ark had let him out in an empty room in the school, so sneaking into the nightlight was not a sure thing, and if he was caught, he would rather not have his hand bring him trouble.

His gloves fell to the floor, and absentmindedly, Allen raised his hand to the piano. His left hand, his whole arm, it was strange, red, cracked near the hand, the red began to spiral around the normal skin several inches above the elbow, and at his shoulder, were circles with points, looking almost like spiked candles or daggers, and before his shoulder ended, were lines like waves. His arm looked tattooed and seemed it be imbedded with a small emerald cross that glittered softly.

Innocently.

His arm, his innocence, his safety from his innocent sin.

His left hand, his deformed one, found itself on the keys of a piano whose colors had been switched, with the black keys now white, and played a tune. He played the musical score, and let his bangs fall off his forehead. His pentacle was visible, his reward of murder, that he had regretted, but knew full well what would've happened if he hadn't. If he didn't have his arm, if his family hadn't been lost twice, if Allen Walker had never destroyed Mana… Allen knew that the Earl would've had another toy, and the Order would've lost something they needed. A tool, their puppet, an exorcist.

There were only a few things Allen claimed to own.

The score belonged to Allen.

Heheh… I edited ; yes, anyone who read the original 4th chapter knows I edited, but I did it with good reason… this chapter was way too weird and angsty for the rest of the series ;;

Sorry for the delay in updates, I kinda had exams to deal with and only got to get this up today… there'll be another double post to make up for it, but this might not be able to keep going with the double posts cuz I'm running out of pre-written chapters ;;;; so…. Yeah, once chapt 15 comes, you're on the same schedule as the dA page ; no, I haven't actually gotten chapt 15 up yet on the dA but… it's half done, guys sweats bullets

I don't own D.Gray-Man, and believe it or not, this is hard to write, so please! Don't come after me with chainsaws again!!


	5. Chapter 5

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Okay, 'nuther double post, go back and read the other chapter first, okay? Okay.

000—Champions The Great Hall, next morning…

Everyone woke early next morning. Even though it was Saturday and most people woke up late, no one wanted to miss someone putting their name in the goblet, so they would know who might be in, and who wouldn't enter.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were among those in the early-morning waking. When they entered the great hall, they found a large group of people surrounding the Goblet of Fire, which had been placed on the stool which the sorting hat usually sat on.

"So all the Drumstrang lot already put their names in, same for Beauxbaton, but we're still waiting for the Katsura people and some people from Hogwarts." A third year girl told them excitedly.

Laughing behind them, made Harry Ron and Hermione turn around, where Fred George and Lee Jordan were laughing happily. "Done it, just now," They cheered.

"What? You've done what?" Ron asked his brothers.

"Aging potion, dung brains, we nicked it, one drop each!" George said, shaking with glee.

"We're gonna split the prize if one of us wins!" Lee said excitedly. Ignoring one of Hermione's warnings, Fred went first, and stepped over the line…. George also jumped over when…

Within a few minutes once the laughter had died down, Fred and George were going to the Infirmary with Lee, two long identical beards on their faces.

"What happened to them?" someone asked. Harry looked around and saw Allen, Lenalee, Lavi, and the other exorcists (who's names he didn't really know) coming through the entrance to the Great Hall.

"Oh, they tried to get across the age line, didn't work too well," Harry smiled as the white haired exorcist came up beside him.

"Ehh, I don't think I need anymore white hair really…" Allen fake-moaned, making Lavi snicker and Hermione laugh a bit.

Then stare as he prepared to step over the line with his friends.

"Hey, aren't you underage Allen?" Harry asked. He had not expected Allen to enter himself, as he looked only fifteen to be honest.

"We'll find out soon, 'cause to be honest, I'm not all that sure either." He said smiling. Lavi stepped over the like first, and dropped a note with no surname into the cup. The flames turned red for an instant, then they became a soft blue once again.

An exorcist with long black hair pulled into a ponytail was next, he walked across without any emotion, unlike Lavi who grinned as he walked out. The flames also changed for him.

Next was Allen….

000— random change of POV

Allen wasn't all that worried about getting a beard, though it was true he didn't know if he was actually seventeen or not. His birthday was never to be known, instead, he changed his age on his adoption day, which was supposedly about five years after his birth, so by all means, he should be either fifteen or sixteen, but seventeen? Well, a little lying never hurt him before….

Anyway, Komui had said his Innocence (it's a crystal, you stupid pervs!) should let him pass through/negate the effects of the charm. The age line was simple enough for him to do that, but more complicated spells, such as those that did damage would affect him just like anyone else. And if not… ah well, he'd just have to have more white hair than usual for a while…. And that was not going to happen as sure as Allen Walker had experienced ten life threatening situations before he was fifteen (meaning, the baka debt collectors had actually been good for something…)

Allen took a small breath before stepping over the line. The sensation was only small, a sort of tickling feeling around his ankles before it spread and went to his arm, the left arm, where it rested and stayed. So as not to seem stupid, he kept moving towards the cup.

As he dropped his name in, he caught a glimpse at what he had written on the slip of parchment.

'Allen Walker—Katsura Academy' though that was hardly where he came from

The flame burned red for him too, as it had for his friends. He turned and walked out of the circle, the tingling in his arm seemed to lessen, until it finally disappeared. He breathed out silently. It's not always good to let people know when you're nervous. He watched Lenalee repeat what her friends had. Harry and Hermione looked at him slightly disbelievingly.

"What?" He asked.

"I thought you were like—fifteen or something!" Harry freaked out. Allen put on the 'fake-embarrassed' look he was so very good at.

"I'm short okay? But I didn't think I was that short…" He shrugged.

"Allen, if you weren't short, and way too skinny, we wouldn't call you Beansprout-chan," Lavi smirked. Allen gave a comical annoyed look, as if to say, 'that's not my name, rabbit-hole.'

"You're nickname's beansprout?" Hermione almost laughed out loud.

"Short story, but don't ask," Allen said, pouting (real). He didn't really like the nickname, but it was okay from Lavi, at least he used an honorific of endearment, but he could have said 'kun' instead of 'chan'. That was for girls normally…

"Uh, okay, I don't think we really need to know, do we?" Hermione asked her friends, who both shook their heads. When it came to the stories of nicknames, especially, 'beansprout', they didn't think they really needed to know…

000—A talk with Hagrid…Hagrid's hut…

"Hey Hagrid!" Harry called into the old wooden cabin. The door swung open as they approached.

"Finally! Thought you'd forgotten all about me!" The giant man said. But… For a moment, they weren't really sure it was Hagrid… He was in a horrible hairy sute, an orange striped tie, and had seemed to have tried to tame his hair…

After the first shock was over, the random topics and talking begin.

000—Private conversation somewhere in Hogwarts…

"Komui?"

"What is it Allen?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure— as long as it's not Lenalee!"

"It has nothing to do with Lenalee, Komui,"

"Oh, well, shoot away then!"

Komui knew what was coming, he had known it since he had seen the two cursed boys – no—when he had first seen Harry and Allen talking, he had known it would come.

"The teacher here was suspicious of us, he has a mechanical eye, and if it can see through things, he's seen my arm and my curse, and he called me 'real devil'," Allen said, "You saw it last night, if he spreads bad rumors of us on my account, we're sunk," Komui was fazed.

He hadn't been expecting Allen to come to a conclusion such as that, actually, he hadn't been expecting that at all. Komui had thought Allen was going to demand to see any and all papers concerning 'Harry Potter' the Order had at their disposal.

"You suspect he can see through things?" Komui asked warily. He did not underestimate the young boy's perceptiveness. Actually, he was rather impressed by the boy's ability to come up with ways of avoiding or breaking the obstacles that constantly were found in the exorcist's way.

"Yes, he looked strangely at my forehead where my pentacle was, even though I had my bangs covering it, and my left arm, even though I was in uniform and it was covered," The small boy looked very serious. It was good that there was no one in the hallway. Living or dead. He was touchy on the topic of his… abnormalities, and if he was worried, maybe it was better no one was around to hear their conversation.

000— The exorcist's conversation By the Lake…

"Lenalee, where'd Allen go?" asked Lavi.

"Hmm? I think he went to talk with Komui Nii-san, why?" Lenalee answered.

"I dunno, I just noticed he wasn't here… It'd be bad if he ran into trouble..." Lavi answered.

Kanda snorted, "Not even Moyashi could get into trouble in a place like this… It's way too calm, I thought there was a war going on." He stood by a tree next to the lake, while Lenalee sat at the base, and Lavi crouched by the shore.

"This IS what happens in the time of war, Yuu-chan," Lavi said quietly. ("don't call me that!") "People work, get married, have kids, the kids grow up and go to school, get jobs, and die, while their kids take their place. The cycle doesn't halt, just because some of us are stuck in the war. People are born, people die, we cant stop these working, any more than we can stop the shadows changing their shape with the light."

Lenalee nodded, "We just never relies it, because I don't think any of us have ever gone to school, or really have had the chance to live in the other people's lives. We're cut off from the workings of the world. Sure we know what happens to a country. If there's a famine, if a minor war or rebellion breaks out, but we don't know the workings of the people," She looked sadly out at a group of students from Hogwarts who were laughing and walking across the campus.

Kanda 'che-d' and said, "But shouldn't they be a bit more careful? For all they know their best friend could one day try and kill them."

"They don't know the danger, Kanda, that's why they can still go on so easily."

"That's why we're fighting to keep it so they don't need to know, Yuu,"

"DON'T CALL ME BY MY FIRST NAME, BAKA USAGI!"

"You're missing the point!!"

"Hell with the point! Don't call me that!"

"Stop fighting you two!!" insert anger mark

"Yes ma'am…"

"Che, fine…"

000—a talk with Hagrid, continued Hagrid's hut…

"Why 'r'you askin' what I think 'bout 'em?" Hagrid questioned when they asked what he thought about the exorcists, rather, Ron asked after they had stopped talking about who they thought would be chosen as champion for Hogwarts.

"No reason, just kinda wondering…" Ron tried his hand at lying. It wasn't very convinceing if you asked Harry and Hermione, But Hagrid missed the hints of on-truth.

"Well, ther' pretty good kids actu-lly," Hagrid said after a moment of thought.

"You've already met them?" Harry asked disbelievingly. He was sure that everyone had gone to bed after the feast.

"Yea, they wer' on thar' way to where they were sleepin' last nigh', and I stopped and talked to 'em a little." Hagris informed them. "Thar' were three who seemed like best friends, one with white hair an' a girl with real'y short black hair, kinda like yurs Harry. Then thar was this hyper redhead kid…"

Hagrid continued to give descriptions of the exorcists, that is, before Ron interrupted.

"But what did you think of them?" He stressed the whole sentence.

"Mm? Oh, righ'. Sorry 'bout that. Well, thar' actually pretty good kids if ya ask me. Fair polite, most wer friendly. Not that bada groupa kids re'lly."

Harry saw Ron look strangely at Hagrid, as though he didn't believe what he was hearing.

000—The Champions Several hours later, going up to the castle…

"I cant BELIEVE he left without us!" Ron puffed.

"Well I can't believe he fancies her, if they end up having children, there'll be a new world record." Said Harry.

Their visit to Hagrid's had gone fairly well, except for Ron's huffyness now, and Hermione unearthing a large talon in her 'beef casserole'.

"Hey, look, it's Allen, Lavi and Lenalee," Hermione said, pointing up the hill. Sure enough, Allen Lenalee and Lavi were with the other exorcists, all moving in the same direction as the trio. It WAS time to go to the Great Hall for the feast anyway.

Hermione called to them, and they turned and waved in reply. The tall Asian boy (Kanda) gave them what was unmistakably a glare, even at the distance.

"Er…Am I imagining it, or is one of them glaring at us?" Hermione said uneasily.

"Nope, he's definitely NOT glaring, who knows what we did to deserve it," Ron said sarcastically. Kanda was just being Kanda.

Yes, I ran out of ideas quickly. And yes, Hagrid DOES know about the exorcists, he's just giving an opinion on them. Erm…. Cant think of anything to say ;

I dunt own anything!


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

DGM HP X-OVER

Owners: JK Rowling and Hoshino Katsura

FF X-over author: Me (Muahahahaha!)

The Great Hall was already filled when Harry, Ron, Hermione and the exorcist school entered. The two parties moved across the hall to Gryffindor table, while Komui made his way to where the teachers and the goblet of fire rested.

"Who d'you thinks is gonna be your school champion?" Harry asked the exorcists.

Allen Lenalee and Lavi looked at each other. Or rather, Lenalee and Lavi looked at Allen who looked utterly bemused.

"Allen, it'll be him," The two said at the same time. Allen's face went so weird, no one could help but to laugh.

"Wha-wha-whaTTT??" Allen tried to say, "WHY would it be me??"

"Do we have to spell it out for you Allen?" Lenalee asked, and Lavi started on a long list about why Allen should be school champion, most of it, Harry didn't understand at all, and there were two possibilities why.

One, would be because he hadn't known Allen very long, the second was confirmed.

"Lavi, you're making most of that up…" Allen said hissing to his friend. Harry couldn't help but snicker at them.

"I hope ours is Angelina," said Fred, ignoring the exorcists.

"Yeah, I hope so too!" Hermione said excitedly.

Maybe because it was the second feast in two days, or maybe it was because the awaiting of the champions was distracting, but it was hard for anyone to enjoy the Halloween feast as they usually would have. The thing they paid most attention to, were the exorcists asking questions (the wizards had their chance the previous day) and any and all talk and rumors about the tournament.

Everyone in the hall was continuously glancing up at the goblet and at Dumbledore, just to see if the feast was over yet. To see Moody scanning the hall with that magical eye was not unusual, and almost discreetly, Komui would glance at his students with slight concern, and one of them would have to look back at him and smile before he would relax and return to eating. Naturally, it was never Kanda)

Despite the tension, the tables finally cleared, and Dumbledore stood. The goblet was ready. Dumbledore gave short instructions about where the champions were to go whene the crowd stiffened again. Maybe the old man noticed; he signaled for the caretaker of Hogwarts to bring out the judge (The exorcists blanched when the word 'casket' was mentioned. Harry reasoned they had thought of the type that dead people were put in.)

The flame turned red again, and a name was spit out. Viktor Krum was the champion for Drumstrang, Ron said that it wasn't surprising, and the exorcists subconsciously agreed to ask Komui about him, since no one else seemed overly surprised either. Fleur Delacour was chosen for Beauxbatons and Cedric Diggory, for Hogwarts. While Ron voiced disapproval at his school's champion, he soon went quiet with the rest of the three schools while awaiting the exorcist's champion… Dumbledore reached out and grabbed the newest slip of paper/parchment that flew out of the goblet, and paused a moment before reading it—

"Champion of Katsura Academy—is ALLEN WALKER!"

Four exorcists cheered loudly (the other three schools did so too, just not as loudly) while a fifth exorcist turned and 'che-d' (guess who?) and an exorcist with snow-white hair got up from his table, looking much too young to be in the tournament, but he walked up into the same room behind the teachers table as the other champions did. Not wavering or showing fear at all.

000—What did you do?? (In the room with the champions…)

Allen had been in the other room for no more than a minute when he (his ears were trained to pick up every noise for information gathering purposes) could've sworn he heard Dumbledore's voice say Harry's name. The door and walls were very thick, so he couldn't be sure, but Allen was positive he had heard Dumbledore say something. Anyway, if Harry's name had been called, he would know soon…

Sure enough, within one or two minutes, Harry appeared at the door, Allen looked at him curiously, wondering why he was there. Harry, looked like he had seen a—wait, that was a bad phrase since he had seen MANY ghosts—Harry looked like he had nearly been decapitated (Allen knew that look, because there was a time when HE was almost decapitated). His face was flushed and he seemed to be in minor shock.

Behind Harry appeared Bagman, who seemed very excited about something, "May I introduce—don't doubt me, this is not a joke—the FIFTH champion!"

Allen almost gagged. This was SO not going to end well.

HARRY'S POV

Harry was still numb from before. He could almost not bring himself to look at the champions—the REAL champions. Cedric, Krum and Fleur all looked so impressive, outlined against the firelight.

Allen was standing in a corner not far from where he was standing. He couldn't see the exorcist's face, but could feel his gaze.

Harry was feeling numb. The conversation washed over him. Disagreement about him entering, talking about some sort of magical contract, saying he –had- to enter the tournament, asking him if he had an older student put his name in the goblet (he said he hadn't—they didn't believe him), but Moody's ideas pierced his dulled brain. What if someone WAS trying to kill him? That had happened twice so far, with Quirrel in his first year, and Tom Riddle in his second. The third year it was his SOUL that was in danger, not his life.

He dully noted Komui whispering something to Allen, and Allen replying in silent words. The kid was a ventriloquist or something.

Someone mentioned something about the first task, Harry, knowing that he would have to compete, looked up and gave Crouch his attention. To Harry, he looked quite ill.

"We are going to test your daring, courage in the face of the unknown is a very important quality for anyone or anything,"

Harry could've sworn that he saw Allen smile—which was weird, Allen didn't strike Harry as the type who would smile in the face of the unknown.

"So we wont be telling you what's coming, the task is on November twenty-fourth, and because of the time consuming nature of the tournament…"

000—Midget… Walking back to bedrooms…

Cedric, Harry, and Allen finally exited the room where the briefing had taken place. Harry was still somewhat numb because of shock, but he was starting to think clearly again… if only just a little.

"So…" Cedric said after a moment, "How did you two get your names in the goblet anyway?"

"I'm of age (believe it or not)" Allen lied through his teeth.

"I DIDN'T put my name in…" Harry mumbled.

"Okay…" Cedric said as he turned and walked away. He didn't believe Harry, nor Allen really, but then again… midgets will be small.

Harry paused to look at the smiling, white haired boy beside him, "D'you think I put my name in the goblet?"

Allen looked at him earnestly, "No, how could you?" in Harry's amazement, Allen smiled again and continued, "Anyway, the look on your face was way too good to be fake," Harry actually smiled slightly.

"Hey, Allen, let's go," someone called to the white haired exorcist. Looking around, it was his head of school, Komui or something. Allen bid Harry goodnight and ran toward his head of school.

Harry was slightly amazed (though given his still numb state) that the exorcists were so close to each other and their head of school especially. Normally, very few students would get to talk with their head of school, but the exorcists were on first-name terms and seemed to be very casual around him, while most people would freeze up around the head of some school.

As soon as the two were out of sight, Harry made his way to the common room, not knowing the similarity to Hell (little though he knew of it) that would await him.

000—Conversation With Allen and Komui…

"What do you think about this, Allen?" Komui asked, noticing that Allen had his empty smile again.

"Harry didn't put his name in, and we might've gotten into another mess," Allen sighed, still wearing that same smile, pretty as it may be, it still made Komui a little on-edge. He was thinking about something very hard whenever he put ont hat smile.

"And the school head from Drumstrang… he seemed suspicious, a bit overly angry with Moody over everything, making such a huge deal over this… But with Moody, he went into full rage, and Moody is supposed to be one of the people who is similar to the special police where we're from, right? It's strange that he would have the predisposition to hate him…"

Komui nodded and made several mental notes to what Allen was saying. The young boy was almost like a Bookman in this respect, he noticed small hints and noises that could give a person away, probably things she had picked up gamboling. Though his memory was not nearly as good as a Bookman, he still deserved some applause. Lavi could memorize every scratch and stain and the fading design on a century old key at first glance, or listen to thirty phones at once and absorb the information as though he were taking notes in a slow-paced class of his best subject.

And if the **apprentice** Bookman could do that, Komui had always wondered how vast the current Bookman's memory truly was…

"What about the boy who is the fifth, Harry Potter," Komui asked as Allen finished his suspicions of the event.

"He's fairly honest, and seems to be okay with us being exorcists, I've been talking to him and we've become relatively good friends. He doesn't seem the type to do something like this on purpose, and he was genuinely shocked when he found out he was competing. The look on his face, even we couldn't make so believable. 'oh great, he just admitted that he's a liar…' Komui thought.

Then again he already knew the three youngest exorcists all were good liars, Lenalee's lies were light-hearted mostly, Komui had discovered what she was lying about, he _was_ her big brother after all.

Lavi lied all the time, but if it made him happier to play the part of 'Lavi' then that was fine. He _was _after all, a Bookman, better to let him enjoy his current name while he could.

Allen had his own reasons for lying. Komui somewhat did not want to find out.

Allen had long stopped talking, waiting for the next question, or his supervisor's opinion. "How is your eye fairing?" Komui asked.

"It hurts every now and then, but it's only an Akuma some sixty miles away," Allen said simply. Not his best subject.

Komui nodded. "Tomorrow we should ask Dumbledore his opinion of this," he said.

"Allen!" Lavi's voice called. The ark was still open like when the exorcist's had left for the feast; he was standing outside the ark, waving to Komui and Allen. The two hurried over to their friends.


	7. Chapter 7

**You're all wondering "How can she take this long to upload when she's already gotten 15 chapters written out" well... it's the editing part I don't like... it just is annoying, cuz I thought I was done with this, then, I got the idea to post it on , so it bugs me a bit... sorry... **

**oh yeah, and this chapter I really didn't like, so if it's bad, they shouldn't all be this bad... at least I hope not...**

**and yes, I know, the ending is really badly done, but it was all I could think of, so... gimme a break, kay? This isn't in my normal style, so I'm inclined not to like it as much.**

**Frontline by Pillar is stuck in my head, and I cant get it out... not complaining, it's an awesome song, but it's the wrong mood... _so drive on and don't look back, it doesn't mean we cant learn from out past. All the things that we might've done wrong, we could've been doing this all alon-- everybody with a fist held high!!_ Okay, I'll stop my crap singing now .;;**

**Disclaimer: ...why should we even have disclaimers on crossovers? Hoshino-dono is Japanese and JK Rowling is british!! HOW CAN THEY BE THE SAME PERSON AND HOW CAN I BE THEM?? **

**sorry, I needed that...**

The next morning, Harry vowed to be eternally grateful to Hermione, she helped him avoid the school at breakfast by bringing him some food elsewhere.

They talked for a while about things. The goblet, him being a champion, a little bit about the exorcists (though not much), and lastly,_ Ron._

By the end of the argument about Ron, Harry had forgotten about forever being nice to her. He wasn't mad at her really, it was just that he was angry to know that what had made Ron mad was his stupid _fame_. would Ron like to go around with a scar on his head? That might be arranged, _just murder his whole family _and let him be famous for it…. Stupid Ron…

Harry fumed as he went to send a letter to his godfather—Sirius. He wanted to know what had happened, but Harry just hoped Sirius wouldn't burst into the castle when he heard about this—he had stowed away into the country just because his scar had tinged for a second during the summer.

000—Weighing of the weapons where d'you think this is??

Harry had thought that the school might've _FINNALLY_ calmed down and accepted him being a champion after a while…. Unfortunately not, and Ron, _RON_ wasn't taking it so well either, acting like Harry _enjoyed_ all the attention… what did he know…

The only consolation—not that there was much of any—was that Hagrid and the exorcist's believed him… on the grief side of things… where should he start? How about everyone in Gryffindor was treating him like a hero while the rest of the school thought he was an attention-seeking lunatic? Or that Malfoy had invented 'Support Cedric Diggory' badges that turned into 'Potter Stinks' badges? Hermione had been hexed so her teeth resembled those of a mutated beavers? Or he was starting to fail some of his classes? Okay, so failing was too strong a word, and completely irrelevant, but the fact was that meant his workload increased, and that _did_ mean something.

And_ now_, now, he was heading up to some place with Colin (an obsessed 3rd year) to some meeting somewhere for the champions, where he would be forced to take a picture for the _Daily Prophet_… this was _not_ going to end well.

Colin was not talking about how amazing it was that Harry had been able to enter the tournament… If he hadn't been feeling overly emotionless (aka, he was feeling so horrible his mind had pretty much gone numb again) he would've very much liked to hit Creevy. Lucky for him, Harry was overly emotionless.

He finally arrived at the door, feeling very much like he was entering a tomb or something… okay, so that was an exaggeration, but he still felt pretty much like what was of the other side of the door, he wasn't going to like one bit.

ALLEN'S POV

Okay, taking abuse because of stupid things (such as being short), Allen could handle that. Being yelled at by his superiors because of being stupid (Master Cross was a good example… yelling at him about being stupid all the time…), Allen could take that. Being tied to a chair by homicidal villagers and being forced to go hunt a vampire, Allen could take that too (though it hadn't been a real vampire… close enough sometimes), _**however,**_ there were places where you were going to have to draw a line, Komui asking to operate on you for **NO REASON** was one of those things that was just not gonna happen if it could be helped!!

And thus, Allen struggled 'valiantly' against Lavi and Lenalee's iron grips as they dragged him to their supervisor. Did they have no pitty?? THOSE DRILLS HURT LIKE CRAP!! Oh, if there were ever a time to curse being parasitic with innocence… aside from the bottomless pit for food you become (but that could be hidden from those with no understanding by way of constantly refilling plates before anyone noticed. Proven fact, from Hogwarts school)…

Eventually (three seconds) Allen decided to resist fully, utterly, and totally. As consequence, Lavi and Lenalee found themselves thrown against the wall and looking up to see a determined Allen sprinting away. That was when Komui decided that _maybe_ Allen didn't need to have an operation, he was definitely in full health…. Geez, that kid could run when he wanted to…

Back to Harry's POV

After just barely setting foot in the room, Allen had run up panting right behind him, as though he had just run several miles ('That actually might not have been as bad' would've been Allen's reply had he heard that question). And before either of them knew it, they were both being chaperoned into a broom cupboard by some journalist from the daily prophet, Rita Skeeter, who was acting under the pretense that she wanted to add a little bit of color on the tournament by interviewing the youngest champion and the only non-wizarding champion… Allen's 'Oh Crap, Another Person Who Wants To Use Me (otherwise known as 'OCAPWWTUM)' sensors went off flashing red.

As the trio sat down in the broom cupboard, Rita was talking continuously in what reminded Allen of little birds. Don't get him wrong, Allen liked birds, it was difficult for him to _not_ like things that had an obvious soul (meaning all things living and Akuma), it was just those certain birds that always felw out of no where and started twittering in the more annoying ways. Yep, Rita Skeeter, reminded his of a little blabber-mouth bird.

First, she kept blathering on about this and that, and asked if she could use some special quill or something, tested the quill, and furthermore wasted time.

"NOW" Rita said suddenly, Allen had to feign a small jump, while Harry twitched. "Allen, right?" The white haired boy nodded, "Tell me a little about you, where are you from?"

Allen said dully, "Britain." Rita was undeterred.

"How did you cut your face?"

"Broken window, about six years ago."

"Why did you bleach your hair?"

"Albino."

" Why are you an exorcist?"

"Because I qualified to be one."

"Do you think your family is proud about you being in the tournament?"

"I wouldn't know," Allen's gaze made the room's temperature drop several degrees…

Rita's eyebrows rose, "Why not?"

"That is none of your concern, and if it becomes your concern, I'll dye my hair blue and enter a beauty contest," Allen's sarcasm was enough to tell Rita she wasn't going to get much out of him at the moment, but that didn't stopped her from mumbling a reply under her breath.

"I'm sure you'll get at least third place, love."

"What?"

"Are you hearing things?" She began her interrogation of Harry…

The first few questions, Allen had no real interest in, but some of the questions reveled a lot, and gave him some questions to ask Komui._ 'He's looked death in the face before?' 'Trauma in his past? Live up to his name?' '…He can't remember his parents?'_

Allen felt like he was being stupid, but suddenly worst-case scenarios started to play in his head. Little bits and pieces of memories that looked iunnervingly/i familiar started to dance through his concise. The quill, still writing on the paper pad as another sentence appeared. Harry was giving Rita too much room to work with. Too many 'Er's, that could be transformed into anything, but those notices barely entered Allen's mind. One real thought was echoing in his head.

Light suddenly flooded the broom cupboard, Allen woke from his thoughts, looked up, and smiled: Saved by the Dumbledore.

000—DUH With the champions in the room where the champions are, duh…

Wand weighing…. MAKING SURE OUR WEAPONS WORK?? (note: Allen refers to things that make other things break such as Komrin/Komlin as 'weapons') Allen's 'Oh, Crappy-Day (also known as OCD)' sensors went flashing red this time (he had warning-sensors for everything, doesn't he?). There was an elderly wizard who was to be checking the wands for any problems or abnormalities they may have, after all, 'wands are the best tools a wizard can have' as he said. _Oh, great_ Allen thought, _the wizards have 'tools'. Us? We have weapons, and destroyers, and everything that makes things go 'boom', if there were ever a reason to change career…_ Not that Allen was ever going to be anything other than an exorcist… not gonna happen.

Olivander talked a while about wands and examined the (wizard) champion's wands, taking his time with Harry's in particular… Finally, he handed back Harry's wand and looked questioningly at Komui, since Allen had shrunk back into the shadows of the room. Dumbledore explained simply that Allen had already been checked, as a procedure of his school. _Procedure… right… _Allen's face showed near exactly what he was thinking at the moment.

Oh, right, from that moment until the very beginning of lunch, was a NIGHTMARE, and Allen promised never to have his picture taken again…

What happened: The photographer seemed to be in love with Fleur, and Rita would keep dragging Harry to the front when the photographer was trying to get Fleur in the front, and Madame Maxime eventually had to sit down while Karkaroff seemed to think his goatee always needed an extra curl (which got annoying after a while), and Krum slunked back into the shadows, while Allen's hair either left his face in a glare, or he too slunk back into the shadows to try and hide his face while not looking too menacing (impossible), and Komui was trying to be with him so Allen wouldn't freak out too much (he didn't know how often he had his picture taken, or if he would freak out or anything and… emotional support is always nice when you're a little weirdo) while Cedric and Dumbledore just stood and waited for everything to get figured out so… yeah, Allen decided to not be so careful with his food that lunch.

At least he had an excuse to be a glutton (he just would hide most of his gluttony by switching plates really fast), but today called for food… several mountains of food this time, instead of just one mountain… And then he would corner Komui about Harry, but… food came first.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry for the wait, but it really IS a pain, going back and editing these, seeing how bad I sucked a while ago... -sighs- hopefully the later chapters will be better... oh, and don't worry, dA isn't getting favoritism, they've only gotten one update, too. It takes me forever to write these things for some reason...**

**speaking of which, I still have to figure out what to do for the newest chapter, before addenza decides to make good on her threats... -shudder- leave my arse alone, please...**

**did I do disclaimers before?? Eesh, it's too late for disclaimers, lemme go to bed already...**

Allen had cornered Komui not long after the wand weighing and demanded information out of his supervisor, not that it had helped much. Komui refused to tell Allen almost anything about Harry's background. Allen tried to ask Lavi about Harry's background, Lavi being the Bookman's apprentice, but Lavi hadn't known of the existence of the wizarding world until the mission. His information store was empty as well.

The first task was coming up as well, which put stress on Allen. He wasn't really fearful of what may come, but rather, slightly worried about how he was supposed to counter it without revealing his Innocence. He was only going to use it if worst came to worst, seeing as his Innocence was more noticeable that Lenalee's, Lavi's, and even Kanda's… how do you hide a freakin' glowing kantana?? Neh, Allen stood out even more than the 'baka moody ponytail' as he and Lavi referred to him when he wasn't around to be pissed off by being called 'Yuu-chan'.

But if he wasn't able to use his Innocence, how was he supposed to fight? If he was even going to be forced to fight that is, he was desperately hoping that there wasn't going to be one of those gladiator battles that Lavi had told him once about,_ and so the gladiators were chosen to represent their lord or country, and they would fight in the arena until one of them was dead. The ancient Greeks did things like that too in the Colosseum, but they also fought lions and dogs and such too, cool huh?'_ Yeah Lavi, cool, after he had explained about the gladiators, he decided to go into vivid description of some of the more gruesome battles… Allen had a nightmare about being stabbed almost twelve times in vital areas before his head was effectively cut off…

Suddenly he didn't know whether to thank his master for the almost-deadly training he had been put through or to just thank his acrobatic/balancing abilities that had kept him alive several times and just jump around again and do whatever the judges wanted him to do…. Eventually he decided to use his usual strategy: jump headfirst and wing it.

The task was easy though, it was life that was hard… the first problem was that people were curious about the white-haired boy who was a champion, the second problem was that Allen was too cute for his own good… and he silently cursed being almost girlish in his appearance… but at least he wasn't mistaken for a girl because of his hair, like poor Kanda was… WAIT—did he just think '_poor Kanda'??_

And the third problem was… Rita Skeeter's article from the _Daily Prophet_ had finally made it's appearance. Though Allen had done a very good job of not giving Rita much to work with, she had still been able to insert sentences he gave her no information that could lead to what she had written (such as transforming his scar into a looonnnggg, traaagiccc, horrribeelll (pronounced 'horrible') story that seemed kind of like a fairy tail (considering his real reason for having it…)

Poor Harry had left her with too much room all around. All his 'er's were transformed into long, sickly sentences that Allen didn't know whether to laugh at or to pity Harry and the other champions (who had been squashed into the last line with their names misspelled and Cedric being completely ignored) before laughing… He decided on winging it again, and laughing when he found an empty room so he wouldn't be mistaken for a lunatic.

The worst that had happened (to Allen) because of the article, was a few annoying quotes and questions about his scar, when he said repeatedly it was just that he had climbed through a broken window when he was younger, people stopped asking, but Harry had it was worse… quotes and jeers from the Slytherins and pity from other studnts and mocking about how he was 'Hermione's boyfriend' (which Allen somewhat doubted to be totally true), and what Allen thought may be the worst of all, Ron was no longer talking to Harry.

It hurt worse than anything to see a friend turned against you. Allen knew that very well. It didn't matter if it was forced or not Mistrust, regret, lies and truths all made it hurt when someone was against you… Allen was reminded of the fight with Road and Tyki in Japan… Lavi flowed through his mind.

Allen sighed and walked down to the library. He didn't know why—or maybe he did, he just didn't want to admit it to himself—he was curious. He wanted to know about Harry's past, just because he was curious. Allen, though you may not guess it right away, was both a very curious person, and a very stubborn person. He had to be, if he hadn't thought up gamboling and been set enough to learn it… well, his life insurance would have to be very, _very_ high to pay off the debts his Master had given him…

000

Hermione and Harry were slaving over books that were supposed to help Harry learn the summoning spell that he had seemed to develop a block about, when Allen entered. They waved to him from behind their books, and he smiled and walked over to them. Harry (once again) vaguely wondered how he could smile like that all the time…

"Hey Allen," Hermione said quietly once he got closer.

"Hello," he said. So far, they had noticed several things about Allen, he wasn't as shy as he might appear at first, he was very brave and almost immune to the hissing rumors about him, and he was overly polite. He never said 'hey' or ''sup' as some people did. It was slightly unnerving at first, but they eventually got use to it… kind of… but the constant apology when he thought he had done something wrong was somewhat annoying…

Allen walked across to a shelf and pulled out a book, _'Historical Events in Modern Magic History'_, couldn't they at least come up with a good name? Oh well, Allen found what he wanted in the book. There were several stray subjects, such as Dumbledore's defeat of Gwendelwag, or someone with a name starting with 'G'… but the final chapter was labeled clearly (it's really annoying when things aren't clear you know) 'Harry Potter and the Dark Lord'. Thank you dull and self-explanatory titles…

So… Harry Potter had defeated the most powerful wizard, Voldemort, whom both aged and young wizards feared to name even after his downfall, when he was only a child. So he was basically an orphaned-wizard cursed-brat called 'The Boy Who Lived'…and he was sitting next to the demon-saving-orphan cursed-brat called 'The Destroyer of Time' in a typical magic-school library. Life never ceased to amaze Allen. Never once had it stopped throwing these weird things at his face. Similar to discovering you were destined to decide the fate of mankind when you really loved the enemy more than anything… nope, life wasn't becoming any less-interesting.

Allen got up slowly and bit Harry and Hermione 'goodbye', before returning to the piano room, not letting either of them see the title of his book. The piano room was the same as ever, he sat down on the piano bench and sighed. On their own, his hands started to play, eerie melodies filled the ark.. No one was inside, so it didn't matter, no one knew the words but him, so that didn't matter either.

000

Lenalee and Lavi had gotten bored. No offence to Hogwarts's student's, but… after a while, things here were just a little _too_ quiet. Sure they enjoyed it, the quiet, it was so refreshing after so long to be able to breathe, but there were some things that just stayed uneasily with them. One of which was the close proximity to people.

Normally… crowds were to be avoided, people were to be mistrusted, and if anyone came too close to you, be ready to attack at any given moment. No matter what, after this war, none of the exorcists would be able to _truly_ trust anyone again unless they were a known comrade, and even then, mistrust was constant around newer members, even with the GateKeeper watching out for Akuma, Allen had proven that he could be fooled because of his pentacle.

Exorcists trusted no one who didn't have a rose-cross, that is, unless Allen trusted them, Allen had an unnatural gift for detecting his enemies, but even then, they were careful. Noah were impossible to detect unless they _chose_ to reveal themselves.

And the quiet was unnerving too, like the calm before the storm that the exorcists were always worried about, no the whole Black Order worried about it. The Earl was always on the move, planning his next attack, cheating his next victim. That was another reason why the exorcists were so upset at the moment. Why they were sitting down, being lazy and relaxing, people were being _killed_ worse than that, they were _being forced to kill_.

So Lavi and Lenalee were trying to blow off some steam. From what they had heard, there was supposed to be a place in the Dark Forest (which was that large forest at the edge of Hogwarts's grounds apparently) where there was hardly anything, so if they wanted to train there without being seen, they could… if they could make it to the forest without being caught that is. Lavi almost laughed to himself. When Dumbledore had told them of this 'secret place', he hadn't known much about him and Lenalee, then again, he still didn't know. Despite wanting to be on good terms with the headmaster, the exorcists couldn't help being secretive, it was a habit after so very, very long…

"Ready, Lenalee?" Lavi asked as they made it to the edge of the forest, the trees towered over them and the stench of danger hung in the air like a thick mist—it certainly felt like a place they would go to!

_Activate-Innocence_

Lenalee and Lavi were soon flying through the air on a giant hammer.

"Lavi, you know that I'd much prefer my way…" Lenalee said.

"Do as you will," Lavi said, smiling his same sheepish smile.

"Activate…"

Soon, Lenalee too was in the air, except she was supported only by her blue, fiery boots.

"Fun time…" Lavi joked.

"Oh, yeah," said Lenalee.

000

"Who knew the students got to visit the village?" Lenalee asked.

"Not me," Allen and Lavi said at the same time. Kanda just stayed silent. The previous day the exorcists had learned that they were allowed to visit the village of Hogsmeade. It was apparently an all-wizarding village near Hogwarts. Not many of the other two schools went, but almost all students from Hogwarts (third year and up) were going, and the exorcists were iso/i not going to miss this chance.

Kanda was just dragged along by the younger three's over-enthusiasm ('Che, idiots…')

"Yeah, we get to come here every now and then, I think… four times a year maybe?" Harry said. He had noticed the exorcists on his way out, _not_ being checked by Filch… _'How'd they get away with that??'_

Miranda and Krory had decided to go look at the quill shops while Harry and Hermione treated the younger ones to Honeydukes. Allen and Kanda were the only ones who didn't have butterbeer. Lenalee explained that Allen was terrified of anything relating to alcohol, and Kanda just didn't like sweet things.

It was somewhat strange, seeing the exorcists in their casual attire. They were still mostly in black; Lavi had a black and gold 'V' collar shirt and Kanda, a black turtleneck. Lenalee had a simple dark-blue dress with a skirt sewn on and a sort of short cape to cover her shoulders. Miranda was also in a dress, but a black one, and she seemed to be worried over something, while Krory had his usual cloak (also black). Allen in part-contrast was in a brown and black striped hoddie. Harry was starting to wonder of being an exorcist made you gothic or something… When he ran this by Lenalee (she and Allen were the less-likely to give some sarcastic comment) she said something along the lines of a denied 'yes'.

It is official—exorcists are Goths.

000

Allen looked around in strangled amazement. Everything here was so beautiful, like on those painted cards he had seen in windows of shops before he had become an official exorcist. They were always so beautiful, but only the aristocrats or someone with a noble lover or relative could afford them. Being neither, Allen had never held one of those cards in his hands. His father couldn't afford one, and Master surely would never be kind enough to give his student a present… Not even for a birthday, though Allen didn't mind so much… he didn't exactly care about his birthday... not for a long time anyway.

Lavi had similar thoughts, so did Lenalee. They were both thinking about how peaceful it was here… no war, no yelling, no strange looks... even when they were in civilian clothes, they usually attracted glances, after all, white hair, ponytails and eye patches don't exactly blend in very well… Here it almost seemed like they were normal. No strange looks came their way, nothing to make them suspect a person of being an enemy, no reason to think the people here might suddenly all be killed… no reason to be clutching your fist in concentration, trying to find out who might attack you suddenly, not caring if blameless people were caught in the crossfire…

Krory and Miranda also felt the same, but about different things. Despite their age, they had been exorcists a much shorter time than the four younger exorcists, so they felt very differently about many things, though their basics were the same.

But for Miranda and Krory, they weren't dwelling on the peacefulness, they were dwelling on how much they may have missed.

Komui felt like he was going to cry as he watched them. The exorcists, who he knew he was one day going to send to their graves. The Black Order viewed them as puppets, or as _some_ would've preferred, weapons.

That was when the group noticed a man with bright red hair across the street….


	9. Chapter 9

**I kept my promise, all of you who read 'Found'! The X-over is now up again!**

**First of all, if it had been four months, I would be nearing a year older. I'm QUITE sure it hasnt been four months since I last updated. It's been FIFTEEN DAYS, not even a month, so don't go screaming that at my face, please! :( **

**Thank God around this point my writing started to pick up, there isn't but so much hell to edit -.-; But there's a slight angst moment in here with the Akuma, but I cant help it, I love making angst... it's just so easy to write -drools over angst- **

**...I did not just drool over angst, nope nope nope! (haha, I'm Ducky xD )**

**Right, sorry, had a moment. Anyway, here's your next chapter, now start praying I don't get a bad grade for uploading this, cuz my science project is already a day late -.- I thought incorperating DGM charas would make me work faster, but instead, I'm slower cuz I don't want to be embarrassed if he puts them up around his classroom, but it's late so I cant worry now, but since my grade's already down I'll have to step up the creativity so...**

**OH! Right, sorry 7.7 anyway, here's the next chapter. Sorry it took a bit. And tell Addenza to PLEASE give me a bit longer for the dA version, cuz I finally am working on it, so LEAVE MY ARSE INTACT!!**

**disclaimer: -arm falls off- oh, look, I cant type anymore. I guess I'll have to skip the disclaimer! (hahaha...)**

"Alleeen… hide…" Lavi mumbled, giving the younger teen a worried look that Harry did not understand, but apparently the exorcists did, they suddenly closed around Allen, making him difficult to see, while Allen mumbled words that no one could really catch under his breath.

"What's wrong?" Hermione whispered, confused. All she saw was where they were looking had been a single man with long red hair and a mask covering the right side of his face, smoking a cigarette.

"Cross… Allen's teacher… if they meet up, Allen's gonna be in trauma all night… no sleep for anyone…" Lavi deadpanned quietly. He had officially met Cross three months ago, and only a few times face-to-face, but he knew what kind of person Cross was to anyone who wasn't a girl, wasn't an aristocrat, and even worse, someone who wasn't looking at their best (the guy was a demon…). Still… girls were less likely to go through trauma, but much more likely to be deflowered… womanizer general... Most people were amazed Lenalee was still a virgin after this guy came back… miracle, really.

It was also a miracle Allen had stayed sane long enough to stick around with him for three years, Lavi could just see a little, twelve-year-old Allen trying to live with this drunkard womanized with his debts… It was pretty clear why Allen went into trauma when he was mentioned.

"..Damn, Allen, you may be in even more trouble than you thought at first…" Lavi suddenly whispered to his friend. He motioned to a pair of people with a logo that Allen seemed to recognize…

"Crap, debt collectors..." he mumbled. They swerved sharply, Lavi keeping in perfect place so Allen would be covered from behind, Lenalee moved into a place at his side, and Komui at his other side while Harry and Hermione led the way to the nearest shop that could provide cover, they didn't know exactly why, but they did not like the way Allen was always looking around now, and how his friends were hiding him from view…

The nearest store happened to be the Three Broomsticks, which they had left thirty minutes earlier to see more of the village.

For some reason, Harry was breathing hard, most likely because the exorcists had been moving so quickly it had been hard to keep up with them, let alone stay ahead of them.

"What was that about?" He demanded, Lavi gave him 'the look'.

"Allen's Master, we told you before, he's a—"

"That man, is a borderline psychopath, a sadist, drunkard, and womanizer, and Joker incarnate, all in one freakin' madman," Allen spat. Wow, that kid had something against his teacher, that was for sure.

"Wow, Allen, who knew you could hate anyone other than Earl so much?" Lenalee noticed, though who or what 'Earl' was, the three wizards didn't know.

"Er, well…" Hermione said, "Who were those other two?"

Allen paled a little.

Lavi answered for him, "I'm guessing debt collectors,"

"Those were the ones that tried to sell me to the brothel…" Allen mumbled.

The wizards looked at Allen's figure, which was strangely surrounded by a depressing black aura… "So…" Hermione started, "How do you plan to get out of here without being seen if there are people outside who… well..."

Lavi said right away that he wasn't about to stall Allen's Master, Cross Marian, and said something about not being suicidal, while Lenalee wasn't going to risk her virginity, and the wizards weren't exactly going to be given the best impression, and this argument went on for a while and…

"Okay, okay," Allen said, interrupting Lavi, "how about I just sneak out the window and you guys go out the door?"

"Oh, right, forgot about that, sorry Beansprout-chan."

"Don't call me that, Rabbit."

"Hey! I'm not a rabbit!"

"Then you're a carrot."

"W-what?? What's with all these bunny-related jokes??"

"Stop fighting!!" -insert anger mark-

"Yes ma'am…"

That was when a familiar, sinister, mechanical, '_vreee_' awoke the exorcists from their own world.

"What was that?" Hermione asked fearfully as the strange whirring noise sounded. A few wizards from surrounding tables looked around, the noise hadn't been loud, but its effect was dramatic.

Both, those who knew what it meant, and those who didn't all stiffened at its forbidding call. Allen looked the most freaked out though, he covered the left half of his face with his hand, and for a moment, they all were silent, the wizards listening to tell if the sound would come again, the exorcists, waiting for some way to get out of the situation to arise…

"Ehh," Lavi moaned, "Allen, let's just get out of here," Allen nodded quickly in agreement. Lenalee watched them for a moment as they walked across the bar, then went along with the wizards to find a table.

Three people, visitors from another village, followed Allen and Lavi. Not that this surprised them, after all, _it was follow the leader_, played the dangerous way in their world.

000

"How many?" asked Lavi.

"Three behind us, two where we're going, so five in total, four are level one, then there's a level two," Allen replied, still with his hand on his face, just in case there happened to be anyone outside the village at that moment.

"Two level ones each and whoever's fastest gets the level two then?" asked Lavi, though it was obvious really. It was also obvious that the _general_ was going to get the level two.

"I'm going to think that's a rhetorical question, and not answer," Allen mumbled, he wasn't in great pain, level twos and level ones weren't nearly as bad as the level threes, and once he got on the move and was trying to destroy them, the pain in his eye was minimal, but that didn't mean he couldn't get a little annoyed at the stinging, right?

"…You're no fun," Lavi said childishly, he smiled at the white haired boy, "We almost there?"

"One hundred yards," Allen replied.

"Fun time…"

"Don't overdo it, we're supposed to be doing PR, remember?"

"I know, but it's hard to hide one of my seals!"

"So don't use the seals, and watch where you swing that stupid thing!"

They argued the whole sixty remaining yards to the place, which turned out to be a really big clump of trees on the side of the mountain.

"Well… we'll be hard to see here anyway…" Allen observed.

"Help, my mommy..."

Allen and Lavi turned around. A young girl with dark-tanned skin and silky black hair stood at the foot of a particularly tall pine tree. She looked as though she were in pain, tears streamed down her face. Allen gave her a sad look, which Lavi noticed.

"That it, Allen?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's one of them, and it's friends…" a small _ka-chuk_ of a gun being loaded did not make him flinch, even as he felt the barrel on the back of his head. "…are right behind us…"

"Right again…" Lavi joked. Allen was never wrong, or rarely anyway (it only happened if his eye was malfunctioning or had simply been stabbed out) about the Akuma. His hand was away from his eye now, revealing two gears, a large one covering his left eye, which had gone pitch black. The smaller gear whirring at its side. Two thin lenses were in the gears, the larger one with a big, ugly, yellow eye, with a catlike slit for a pupil.

His left arm grew long and black, almost like metal, claws sprouted from his fingers, long and white. A cross, bright white, was where his old emerald cross had been embedded in his hand.

The large, gray sphere behind Allen had guns… barrels, pointing in every direction, and a white, mask-like face that was withered in a look of torment. For a moment, Allen listened to the Akuma's tears. Lavi's hammer destroyed it, and without a second thought, Allen's arm activated completely.

"Good night…" he whispered quietly, as three Akuma suddenly were cut in half. He watched as their souls broke free, and smiled at them. The two exorcists, even though only one exorcist could see them.

000

Harry had been under the cloak for a while now. For almost an hour, he had been talking to Hermione and the exorcists from under it. Now, Hermione was sitting with Lenalee at a table in the back of the pub. They were talking about SPEW, Lenalee did not have much of an opinion on house-elves enslavement, but she offered some ideas. Her was quietly sipping his Butterbeer under the cloak, feeling free of all troubles for once. They had barely missed Rita Skeeter as she went out, and Harry had seen Cho without a 'Support Cedric Diggory' badge, so in all, the only things that could make this better was if he wasn't a champion, and if Ron was sitting next to him…

Hermione waved to someone across the bar. Hagrid and Moody came walking up next to their table, and they acted as though they were reading the book on SPEW that Hermione had brought along with her, but instead, Hagrid leaned over and whispered something in Harry's general direction.

Lenalee looked startled, "How did you know Harry was there?"

Moody turned and looked at her coldly. He had never been particularly nice to anyone as far as Harry knew, but it seemed that he was colder to the exorcists than anyone else.

"It's called an eye,"

Lenalee blanched, "So it can see through things?"

"Yes, now shut up, brat."

_Allen is going to have it hard with this guy around…_

000

Allen closed his eyes in mental discomfort as he remembered the events of the day… After they had destroyed the Akuma, Master Cross had found him… as well as the debt collectors… How much money had he been forced to pay this time? …It was actually a vacation, only (length deleted, because it would have taken the length of the chapter to write out).

Lavi had almost fainted when he heard the amount, and after the debt had been paid, Cross had dragged Allen (not literally, d'you think Cross would've actually dirtied his hands trying to get the 'idiot apprentice' to follow him? No, that only happened once when Allen jumped off a cliff and Cross needed him to do something,) to a bar at the end of town and sat back and watched as Black-Allen cheated half the gamblers in the bar out of all the money they had on them and their cloaks (he had decided to be kind and did not have them remove anything else.)

Still, apparently, Allen hasn't earned enough money, so after Cross let his annoyance out, Allen had to drag his sorry ass into an alley until Timcanpy had found Lavi and they had gone back into the castle where Madam Pompfrey had taken care of his multiple bruising.

Allen didn't want his Master dead (contrary to popular belief), but he did wish Cross would take a long walk off a short pier sometimes… a _very_ short pier… and maybe pay his own debts for once, but the _proud, gentlemanly, lady-charmer _(idiot ladies)_ Cross Marian_ was not about to do _charity_, even if it was his own disciple that suffered because of it. Freaking --.

Allen sighed and looked up. He missed the Black Order already. At least _there_ he didn't have to worry about his arm or his scar, he could escape his master (or find him, depending on the need) and he wouldn't have to hide his gluttony that the Innocence shard in him desired. If he didn't eat enough, he'd probably have problems moving, invoking, staying awake… he loved eating, but sometimes, eating so much became annoying.

His mind began to drift again… and soon, he found himself dwelling on color. Lavi was red, not really, but he wanted his personality to seem red and welcoming. It worked fairly well too, there were few people who Lavi absolutely could not make friends with, and usually those were the grand generals and Allen's master. Kanda, was blue, he had a calm, controlled exterior, trying to make things run smoothly. He got carried away with his duty, just like the river that carries itself away. Lenalee was green, a bright, pretty green. This showed two sides of her, one side, that created happiness like the returning of life in the spring, and the other side, which was terrified of being swallowed up and being taken away from her friends again, like getting lost in a jungle of one color. Komui was purple. It wasn't hard to figure that one out. And Allen was black and white… more commonly known as 'gray'.

For a while, he stared out at the moon, white like snow. Suddenly a burst of flame from the forest sent heat waves crashing into him.

"What the--!" Allen looked on in amazement. The pillar of flame was a good distance away from him, but the searing heat was still amazingly strong. It was only a day or two before the first task was to take place, it would make sense for them to bring whatever the champions were to face only a little while before the actual task, but if this was the case, then what could…

Oh no…

Allen suddenly remembered something Lavi had told him once. When he was younger, he had never listened to fairy tales, there was too much work to be done in order to survive when he had grown up, so he hadn't heard of the creatures who's images hadn't been very vivid in his mind until recently…

'_They were sort of like lizards, but most of them were supposed to be huge. They had big bat wings and could fly really fast supposedly. Even Lenalee might have problems outrunning it if she decided to play fair… okay, so she would still outrun it easily, but you get the point! Anyway, they were huge, they can fly, they have tails to whack you with, and coolest of all— they breathe fire! Come on, Allen! You have to admit it sounds pretty cool!'_

Allen had admitted he thought they were cool, but that was _then_. Now he was going to have to face some huge, fire breathing—

A small black bat-like creature suddenly appeared in front of him, Lenalee's voice came out through it:

"Allen, the first task is dragons."


	10. Chapter 10

**Oh my god, it's been so long since I updated 0.0 I'M SORRY!**

**...my Harry Potter book went missing and I only found it the other day, so I kinda didn't want to even look at this and be reminded that I still had a lot to work on on this.... -sigh- now just wait for the treats to come rolling in... **

**This was... I think the first battle scene I ever wrote, so I threw in a lot of anything I could think of and it's not that great... I also recall being first exposed to the 'he's a fangirl' joke a bit before writing this and I was friends with a girl who always said 'I'm a happy puppy' when something good happened, so that's why those are there... nostalgia after all this time –.–'**

**..um... the next chapter I might just rewrite because it's so horribly close to the manga since I was in a panic and had only a day to finish it (a certain someone always tells me to have the next chapter up in a week, and I fear to defy her for my arse's sake...) but... if (and when) it takes a while to upload the next one, it's because I'm rewriting it.... at least I'll try to rewrite it –.–;**

**Disclaimer: ......I am no longer EVER doing disclaimers for this! You know what? You want a disclaimer, go to the original post!! X0**

Allen almost fell off the astronomy tower, the first time he really lost his balance on anything. _"DRAGONS? WHY ME, DAMMIT?"_

Allen swore, very, very loudly. At the moment, no one could really blame him. I mean seriously… _Dragons?_

000

Allen came into the champion's tent a minute or two before Harry. He was not really scared; he had a plan… sort of. Still, he couldn't help fidgeting with the sleeve's zipper on his uniform, even though that was pretty stupid, what if he showed the whole room his arm? Maybe he should just break down and buy a skin-colored glove… and eye makeup… but even Allen couldn't make enough money to pay for all that.

He moved to a corner at the far end of the tent around the time when Harry came in. The black-haired boy looked pale, he must've known what was coming as well, glancing around the tent, Cedric gave Harry a small smile before he continued pacing. Bagman followed him, looking sort of like a happy puppy…

"Well! Now that all the champions are here, we can begin!" oh, he didn't just LOOK like a happy puppy… he SOUNDED like it too… "In this bag are the things you will be facing… there are different… uh... varieties, you see," Bagman said as he held the bag out to the champions. Four of which were in wizard's robes, one, still in his 'school uniform' (hey, how was anyone here supposed to know that his coat was actually made of an extremely durable and flexible material specially designed by the science team, consisting of about or over three hundred _mad_ scientists, for protection against the debris of a battleground and the attacks of demonic beings firing high-speed bullets or worse?)

"Your task is to collect the golden egg!" Bagman squeed. _Oh great, now he's not just a happy puppy… did he just 'SQUEE?' crap, he's become a fangirl now too…_

After a while, the cheering from outside the tent bloomed in a glorius uproar. One by one, the champions all put an arm into the bag, and pulled out a small model of a dragon.

Allen's dragon model was smaller than all the others, it had smooth-looking copper scales and black ridge markings with a small number '5' on it. For some reason, the long teeth made Allen think of poison. Apparently he was correct, his dragon was poisonous, but to his immense relief, Bagman said that they had nullified the poison, and had antidotes on hand for immediate application.

But hell, those minutes, actually, that entire _hour_ that Allen had sat in the tent, awaiting his turn, had to be one of the most _mind-numbing_, grotesquely and utterly _boring times_ he had _ever_ had. It seemed to be the opposite with Harry. Allen wondered if the kid knew he was hyperventilating…

000

Allen's dragon was exactly like the model now in the tent, except bigger. Maybe about 16ft? Not too bad… He could hear the crowd's roar as he stepped into the arena. Sweet Lady Luck seemed to smile on him for once. For one thing, all he had to do was get an _egg_, second, he could move faster than almost anything except Lenalee (but then again, she _invented_ the sonic boom, and that is not even meant to be funny, it's a fact of the hidden history).

The Vipertooth's (the dragon was a Peruvian Vipertooth apparently) coat gleamed an easy-to-spot copper against the sky (which as far as Allen could tell was a cloudy gray, but then again, he was just a bit too focused on the dragon to notice these things). It lunged at Allen, who had decided to play it safe given the poisonous teeth. Allen fell back, _literally_ fell back. He gave up his footing and jumped into a shallow crevice created by rocks. The dragon passed overhead, Allen jumped out the moment its tail vanished from above.

He was aware that everyone's attention was focused on him. He took in everything about the arena in the instant he leapt out of the hole. This was the first time seeing and exorcist fight—or run actually. He wasn't going to _fight_. Truthfully, this seemed a little bit more like he was back in the circus, just with more fire and fewer ropes for him to balance on, but the same amount of jumping as in a mission ('wing it' had taken a new meaning) and balancing acts, he used all the time.

The dragon seemed to have noticed that it's pray had escaped it, it twisted around and lunged back at Allen. He jerked to the side as the thing went whizzing by his face, and he could've sworn he lost a few strands of hair to it's fangs as it roared past (aw man, more hair to re-grow?) Once again, the dragon looped around. Allen was by this time, dully aware of the crowd's roar. It was rather distracting, actually. He was more focused on the rocks around him, and the speeding object coming toward him. The dragon hadn't tried to breath fire yet, but Allen knew (from experience) that if something thought you were playing with/mocking it, it was going to get mad. _Really mad_, and he wasn't very happy with the idea of an angry dragon set on hurting him. Allen had a thing about pain, he could take it, he was actually quite use to it, but if it was cause because of something like this… no thanks, he was enjoying his little break off pain. _Thank you, nice being here folks, but I think I'll excuse myself from this little 'owie' fest!_

A dull ringing was in his ears… no… that was wind… but it was louder than wind… and it was behind him… aw, crap!

Allen had forgotten dragons had tails.

The spear-shaped point of the tail looped around and snatched his leg. Allen had been expecting it to lunge again, but _no_, life was _never_ that easy. The dragon just _had_ to use it's tail. It pulled up; Allen's leg gave such a large jerk that he was almost thrown off the ground, but the tail hit one of the rocks littering the arena and fell back down. Though immensely relived that he hadn't been thrown into the air, he was worried his leg might break if it was held any longer in the crushing scales.

"_Allen! Rock!"_ one voice cut through the crowd, which was by now mostly groans and jeers, but Lavi's voice was at times obnoxiously loud, and for once, that was a good thing. Allen turned his head the best he could, one of the fragments of boulder was right beside him, it was large, no more than a few feet away, and best of all, it had a sharp, rigid side that would cut your hand open if you were stupid enough to rub against it…

Allen brought his leg up, the one with the dragon's tail still tightly around it, and kicked as hard as he could towards the rock—and all who had ever seen Allen kick or punch anything knew, it was very hard to stop. A deafening screech was heard from behind him, and the restraints on his leg loosened.

A quickly as his reflexes would allow, Allen jumped out of the dragon's grasp and flew up onto the furthest rock his now slightly-bloodied leg would allow him to jump to, which was about ten feet away.

With his elbows bent to help him with balance, he once again took the least amount of time he could to survey the territory. About one hundred feet away he saw a glimmer of gold surrounded by pale bronze… eggs. _You're objective is to collect the golden egg!_ well… maybe this wouldn't be so difficult…

Let's see… one hundred meters, with his leg, Allen could jump about ten meters and loose only a little bit of distance if he jumped too far or landed too hard, which would affect the rest of his movements as well. However, he also had the dragon to deal with, and while he had no real means of defense against it, he could dodge. So without going in a strait line, but rather in random directions, but in the general direction, Allen could make it within a minute at the longest, but given the dragon would catch on fairly quickly (never underestimate your enemies' intelligence without repeated reason, it'll be the death of you) but that, he would worry about later (so much for not underestimating your opponent…)

Allen jumped back, avoiding yet another lunge, but this time, he managed to glimpse it's eyes. They were wide with hate, he was an insect (how very rude), a nuisance it wanted to send away (didn't everyone want to get rid of him?), a little pest he longed to squash (this dragon suddenly seemed like Kanda… hehe, Kanda-dragon... now that was something to think about…), unfortunately, Allen did not agree with it.

He smirked at it.

The cat-like slit of a pupil widened again in rage. That little _bug_ was mocking the great dragon.

Unacceptable!

The dragon roared in pure anger and went on a rampage, crashing into rocks and sending rubble flying everywhere. Allen broke out smiling, that little trick had worked better than he thought it would, the dragon wasn't thinking properly anymore, it would hardly notice him sneaking across the arena in all the chaos, and if it couldn't see him, it wouldn't breathe fire in fear of hitting its eggs.

Ninety feet.

Fifty feet.

Thirty-five.

Twenty.

Ten.

(That was when the dragon noticed him.)

Five

Oh my, they could really fly when they wanted to, couldn't they?

Four

(Oh ---- that's not good…)

Three

(So here I am, sailing through the air, just WAITING for a dragon to catch me...)

Two

(Why am I even counting the feet left?)

**GOT IT.**

The dragon was on him, over him, it's mouth was wide open. He saw flames. Lots and lots of flames.

One thought:

_Activate, Crowned Clown!_

A paper-thin white cape surrounded him, just before the flames did.

000

Lavi hadn't stopped grinning a moment after Allen had broken the dragon's grip on his leg. The only time afterwards he had been remotely worried had been when the dragon had opened its mouth to breathe fire. Lavi had experience with fire, in a very different way, yes, but none-the-less, experience.

But Allen had Crowned Clown, so none of the exorcists were very worried (except for Kanda, but Lavi was amazed he had even shown up for the match), though he had heard a small squeaking noise out of Miranda and Lenalee had been looking uncomfortable ever sense he had entered the arena, though that was kind of expected. She was always worried about her friends.

Unfortunately, the wizards didn't have the exorcist's knowingness of the white-haired boy.

"Oh my!" Hermione gasped as the flames covered up all view of Allen. Even Ron, who ever since the first dragon had been shown, had been standing beside Hermione, mouthing seamlessly 'Harry' and words of assurance.

Harry was watching beside them, he and Ron had made a fast apology, while Hermione had burst into tears and called them both stupid idiots. Lavi had been forced to refrain from saying '' to their faces.

Harry automatically called Allen's name, when a little golden golem flew to Lenalee.

"Tim!"

"What is that?"

"A snitch?"

"What's a snitch? It's called a golem."

"Tim, is Allen okay?"

The little golden ball (Timcanpy) nodded, or rather, bobbed its reply, and turned back to the stadium, everyone else turning with it. About then, dragon had successfully been stunned and the flame disappeared. Nothing was there.

Lavi scanned the arena (what he could see of it), and suddenly snickered.

"Normally I wouldn't give points for clichés, but I'll make an exception for this one… "

000

Allen was brilliant, he knew it too. Who _else_ would've thought to hide in a ditch? Honestly, that trick was being used (and had been used) so often it was almost getting boring! But really… it wasn't such a bad idea sense Crowned Clown's cape had blocked most of the flames… and he didn't want to be questioned about what 'that paper stuff' was. Not the most fun question to answer if you wanted to stay out of an insane asylum (though he wondered if he would be right at home in one)… but he wasn't sure how he would be able to get out of it if someone noticed that there hadn't been a large crevice in the ground before the flames had started…

000

"You took a blast from a dragon _full on_, and the worst you get hurt is _a bloody leg because you slammed it into a rock?_," The three wizards shrieked when Allen came into the medical tent. Meanwhile, Lavi was laughing his head off in a corner and making little comments about how Allen would 'eventually become a permanent cripple' at the rate he was going.

The scores had been called out (Allen ended up with about ten points less than Harry given his leg… and Karkaroff decided to be mean) and they had been told what to do with the egg… And so, Allen didn't have much to do for a while except worry about something he had forgotten about in face of dragons…

The Akuma.


	11. Chapter 11

**As I'm typing this note, it's 1 AM on a school night, I have a dentist's appointment tomorrow (today), there was a really loud thud on the roof not too long ago and I'm hoping it was just snow and my harddrive is BACK!**

**...yes, hard drive crashed. No one cares and they're all just going to be mad that I didn't update in a while, right? You mean people...**

**Anyway... I finally retyped half of this, so you who already read it on dA are going to notice differences here and there, as well as a break in the style since I first wrote this a long time ago when I was still doing shorter, crack sentences... butt the crack (that was intentional, btw ;D ) will keep coming here and there when I can if I can still make a joke... ehhh...**

***coughcough* I figured I'd try to upload this since I'm already up too late for a school night, and just so you know I'm trying to get back to updating these, but school's picking up, again, and I'm still not getting home until 7, and when I'm home I want to work with my OCs and check up on internet crap, but no one listens to my excuses so stop reading this and start reading the fic! Really! I have no historical detail in here other than that I may be leeching a little off some other fictions later on!! **

**disclaimer: why are you still reading this?? GO!! ...omigod,IloveUnknownPerson'sKarlandhe'sjustfreakin'awesomethereI'monrandomshitnowsogoandreadalready!**

The crazy journalist-abuser had been shaken off for the time being. The party in Gryffindor tower (which had probably kept the entire castle awake) had subsided around… maybe 2 AM? It was pretty late anyway. The exorcists also had a little party for Allen's ability to not get caught using Crowned Clown, but that mostly consisted of Allen eating his heart out (courtesy of the house elves), which he had not been able to do for maybe a month? It was too long for him anyway…

Lenalee and Lavi just looked on in amusement. Watching Allen eat was actually very entertaining, despite the slight nausea you were sure to feel when you first watched, after a while you got use to his past-gluttonous appetite.

Krory and Komui were talking about something or other. No one really paid any attention to it. Miranda was trying to sew again. Her hands were covered in bandages but she was still trying, and every now and then, someone (not Kanda or Cross) would bend over and help her a little.

It was calm, happy as it might ever get.

And as everyone who has ever had a happy moment with their friends knows, it doesn't last for long. It never lasts long enough.

'_Vreee'_

"Oh, hell," Lavi said. Allen jumped up and ran away towards the entrance to the ark. There were Akuma around. A lot of them. Kanda looked up from his corner where he had been calmly resting, eating his soba with Mugen by his side. He Lavi and Lenalee chased after Allen. Miranda and Krory, who was clutching his mouth, followed quickly, leaving Cross, who was still drinking some sort of wine, and Komui, who was looking at the door the exorcists had run out of moments before.

"Am I a horrible person?" Komui asked, "I always am the one who sends them into danger…"

Cross shrugged and took another sip of wine. "You know, sometimes I think we live for that moment of victory…"

000

Allen's eye whizzed painfully. His right eye could hardly see in the darkness, therefore, he was relying only on his left eye for guidance— the world was much darker than it should have been, only the black and occasional white of waves on the lake or the spots of moonlight between the clouds stood out between the gray.

Only the sickening reddish purple dots gave him direction. They were coming to meet him even… oh, haha, the Akuma are coming~, the Akuma are coming~ Did you know singing your thoughts is an unofficial sign of insanity?

"Allen—" Lenalee's voice flew out from behind.

"Invoke, they're coming fast! Five level twos, eight level ones, and a level three! It's gonna be fun! Real fun!" Allen called back. A flash of green told him Lenalee had invoked most likely Lavi and Kanda had too; they were just letting Allen lead them…

Allen made an uncharacteristic smirk. He was in predatorily mode now. The Akuma were his prey… His mind was empty of all thoughts but protecting his friends and saving the Akuma. Relishing the feeling of his Innocence invoking, the pain in his eye almost completely vanished.

He knew it disturbed some when he went into 'destroyer' mode, as he referred to it in his mind. It was just disturbing to some people to know that kind, cheerful, carefree Allen Walker loved more than anything in the world, to destroy Akuma. Because when he destroyed Akuma, he saved the humans it might have killed, the Akuma's suffering soul, and the people who might've been made into Akuma because of its unwilling killing spree. It was a chain effect, and besides that, it felt... oddly good to make the kill.

Those Akuma hurt horribly. He had once collapsed in pain when the Akuma had been far away. But never again… he would save them all now. Human and machine. Right for the humans, left for the damned.

The white of his arm enveloped his body. He was the damned clergyman.

000

Harry was still awake. He happened to be looking out the window when he saw several flashes of light. The first one was green, and it looked a little bit like fire, after it sparked, it stayed glowing, speeding up gradually. A moment after the first green light, an electric blue light seemed to make a cut in the air. Its glow also stayed, but much, much duller than at first. The third light happened a few seconds later than the other too, blinding white, but it was confined to a small area.

He got out of bed and was about to leave when he thought better of going alone. He shook Ron awake and noticed Hedwig sitting on the sill. He gave her a note and sent her to wake Hermione, then pulled out the invisibility cloak and Marauder's Map and looked at the six dots in motion: Allen Walker, Lenalee Lee, Yuu Kanda, 49 were running in the direction of the Dark Forest. Aryster Krory and Miranda Lotto were following much farther behind.

"What are they going to do?" Ron hissed. Suspicion growing in his eyes. He had expressed from the beginning that he didn't really trust the exorcists.

Harry shook his head. "I dunno…"

000

"Where are Miranda and Krory?" Allen called when he noticed they weren't there.

"They're hanging back in case one of them gets past us!" Lavi called back.

Allen nodded to himself, as Lavi couldn't see, and they were most likely only following his white hair and cowl. Just then, one of the bright reddish dots swerved. "_LEFT!_" he shouted, instantly following his own instruction. His taloned black arm not following behind, but partly leading him into the snakelike _thing_ that was one of the level two Akuma.

His arm may have been innocence, but he could still feel it grinding through the metal, to find the binding of the tortured soul within… And rip it apart.

One by one, he and his companions ripped through Akuma after Akuma, Kanda with Mugen would've gotten most of them, but Allen and Crowned Clown weren't about to let him save them all. Meanwhile, poor Lenalee with her Dark Boots and Lavi with Big-Little Hammer only got three each. The level three was the only left soon, cocky and arrogant as ever.

"_Just because you beat those weaklings you think you can beat me?__ Arrogant brats!_" But most Akuma were like this, or they seemed to be. After level one they tended to develop a personality, and it was not often as pleasant as the one Krory happened to encounter while still being believed to be a murderous vampire.

Akuma never stopped crying until the end, and after that they were happy.

And destroying them made Allen happy.

But you know, it's a strange feeling when you can feel sort of a second life inside—or outside— of you. That was basically how Allen's arm and cowl was. He didn't feel pain if it was hit, but he could feel it moving. It stretched and from the main part of the cowl, small strands of almost glue-looking fabric twisted out. They flew out and made their own ways toward the level three.

He would have ensnared the Akuma in a similar way that he had when in China, but Kanda, being swifter, beat him to it and plunged Mugen into the Akuma's shoulder, through it and into the ground. Allen had to suffice with muffling the shriek the Akuma gave out with the coils of cape sticking into its mouth.

The Akuma, though muffled, called Allen something which truly shouldn't be repeated as he made his way over to where the Akuma was being held down, slicing off its appendages just a bit sadistically until the Akuma was completely harmless despite its incredibly foul mouth.

"Akuma…" Allen said, not bothering to sound powerful or fearful. He used his normal voice when talking with enemies, quite unlike what someone else might've done. Someone else might've tried to make themselves bigger to try to intimidate their enemy, but with Akuma, it wasn't as though that would even help. "I want to know the reason you are here in such a number and what you were doing in Hogsmeade the other day."

The Akuma stared at him. "_You don't know?_" It asked slowly. "_You dumbassed exorcists, here without knowing?_" It repeated again. Allen had a sinking feeling in his gut as the Akuma began to laugh and Lavi and Lenalee came up behind him. "_YOU DON'T KNOW! EXORCISTS DON'T KNOW! PWAHAHAHAHA!_"

Kanda withdrew Mugen from the Akuma's shoulder and punched it through what remained of the other one, calling out an earsplitting shriek that Allen was just a bit too late to muffle completely.

"You were saying?" He growled. Something that sounded decidedly like a whimper of a kicked puppy came out as the Akuma cocked its head. Kanda's lip twitched and he began pulling Mugen back out when

"_There'slottsainnocencesomewhereinthecastle!NOWDONTHURTME!_"

Lavi voiced his disproval, "What? You can't be serious!"

"Why didn't we see this coming?" Lenalee muttered under her breath.

Allen sighed with Kanda, who's sigh sounded more like a breathed 'keh'. "Thank you very much," he muttered, raising one of Crowned Clowns's talons, and ran it through the Akuma.

With a final hushed insult, it exploded into light and mist. Not leaving a trace except for some smoke behind it.

All Innocence was deactivated and for a moment there was a dull, peaceful quiet, with the world so calm and dark that only the crickets were heard along with the wind in the dark forest, and the dents and smoke in the ground were invisible against the cover of night.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING?" Harry shouted as he Ron and Hermione came running into the same field the exorcists were standing in, shattering the momentary peace and making all present jump. Roughly the same thought raced through each exorcist's mind at the exact same time, _Oh, shit, did they see us?_

The initial 'stunned' effect lasted only a moment, and Lenalee was the first to recover.

"Did you guys just see--?" she seemed to mouth wordlessly and pointed at the place where the Akuma had just disappeared.

Harry shook his head quickly and said, "We saw some lights so we came down here and see you guys and smoke everywhere and—what were you guys doing out here anyway?" realizing the second most obvious question, the first most obvious would've been 'what the heck was that?' but in ruder terms/

By now Lavi and the others had also recovered and were going into full 'cover up all evidence you're something other than a wierd-happy-nutjob-A-student'.

"Allen happened to be looking and he saw some weird lights too, so he yelled and we came to check it out! What did the lights you saw look like?" Lavi supplied quickly.

"There was a blue flash, a green flash and a white flash and they went on to around here so we came to look," Hermione said. Allen nodded quickly to say that was what he also 'saw'.

Ron hung back while his friends did most of the talking. He usually wasn't the most responsible one in the group, but there was something about the exorcists… almost like they were hiding something. Really, they were exorcists for crying out loud! How could anyone _not_ find that suspicious?

"Should we tell Dumbledore about this?" Harry asked, interrupting one of Hermione's descriptions of the lights.

"No," said Kanda, speaking up for the first time, "if we desterb him with this, it may get in the way of the tournament. The schools will wish to withdraw their students, and according to 'binding magical contract', they wont be able to, so there'd be a dispute," Harry and Hermione nodded dumbly. They had never pictured Kanda to be the one who thought all these types of things out. Then again, they hadn't really talked to him, not that many actually had, "Beauxbatons and Drumstrang are already upset because you entered the tournament," he said, his glare shifting to Harry, who was not use to such and twitched. "if they think that their students are in danger of whatever caused those flashes of light, they'll be sure to take it out on Dumbledore, and I don't think you'd want that," Kanda finished his statement impressively, and lapsed into more silence.

The night was quiet except for the high-pitched chirping of crickets in the background and the trees in the wind, broken occasionally by strange sounds from the forest.

"Guys, let's go back to bed, we're not going to figure out anything by standing here all night…" Lavi said, breaking the spell. Allen and Lenalee nodded, while Kanda just continued to stare strait ahead with his black, bottomless eyes. Harry and Hermione watched as the exorcists turned around and trotted back to the pieces of shattered light that they always went into. Allen had said it was called an 'Ark', but said no more than that other than that it could take them most anywhere and provided a place to live. Saying 'goodnight', the exorcists vanished into the shards, not to be seen by outsiders until morning.

Ron mumbled something, very quietly at first, then a little louder.

"Guys, I need to tell you something…"

With that, he, Harry and Hermione made their way back to Gryffindor tower.

000

Immediately inside the Ark, Allen, Lenalee, and Lavi collapsed. Actually falling over all at the same time.

"DANGIT! THAT WAS WAY TOO CLOSE!" Lavi yelled. Allen and Lenalee nodded dumbly at the statement. That was way too close….

Meanwhile, Kanda returned to his now-cold soba and waited for the useless emo-twins to return. Or as Beansprout, Carrot-top, and Lenalee preferred to call them, Miranda and Krory.

000

Ron left Hermione and Harry in the common room while he went to get something from the dorm. When he returned, he was carrying a scrap of parchment and looked a little sick. When he handed Hermione the piece of paper, Harry recognized it as Mr. Weasley's handwriting from over her shoulder. She began to read it outloud.

_Ron-  
In response to your question, I don't really know where to begin. First of all, I must say that I do not wish for you to discriminate these exorcists because of what I say, they may be quite different from the rumors that come around, but non-the-less, I will answer._

No, do not trust them totally. Exorcists were sometimes rumored to be the best at covering up tracks. Several centuries ago, exorcists were at their peak, they were seen often wherever strange happenings occurred, though contact with the magical world was minimal, it was possible they knew of wizards even then.

The Ministry of Magic back then had tried to restrict any and all contact with exorcists, and for their reasoning… well, this is what the exorcists seemed like back then:

They were always clad in black, sometimes, or quite often, they were accompanied by people in white robes, more often than not, trench coats. They looked harmless at first glance, but the moment people saw the emblem their jackets, they tended to tense up and fret away. If an exorcist saw someone acting like that, they would stare at that person until something else caught their attention. Wherever they went, something seemed to be destroyed and people went missing. Anyone who got in their way was most likely in trauma for months.

And that wasn't the worst of it; if a person made the wrong move, or spmetimes tried to talk to them, the exorcist would immediately attack; the poor person would explode into gas. The exorcist would simply stare at the corpse (what there may have been of one), and point whatever they used to kill first at the nearest person, and sometimes went on rampages through entire areas.

Many strange objects were used to kill, mercilessly. There were reports of a giant hammer that destroyed a building in Germany (and several other places), a girl with flaming shoes, a person with a sword-like weapon, wires (thin string-like things muggles use to build, but much stronger and more painful to be hit with than string), a bell, even some reports of a corpse itself and a gun. Some people even claimed they saw a vampire or a boy with an eye that came out of its socket while he was attacking.

Some exorcists only needed a part of their body to do great damage. Those seemed the most threatening in the Ministry's eyes. For the others, all that you had to do was take their weapon away, and they were normal humans, but with the other type, you actually had to destroy part of their body to _stop them, and even after that, they were much more driven than the others seemed to be, and most like this seemed completely harmless at first, as though they had second personalities while murdering._

And they could not be caught. Though the exorcists were easy enough to spot, they were almost impossible to catch (the only one we did catch was a man around the late 1800s, who didn't seem to mind, and the moment we tried to put him on trial, a child broke into the Ministry and they both escaped). They were experts at moving quickly from place to place and their headquarters was never found.

But after the 1800s, they grew fewer and fewer, and became much less active. It was thought that the practice of exorcism died out by the early 1900s, but if there are exorcists at Hogwarts, then this is an enormous risk Dumbledore is taking.

Ron, I don't want to say that you shouldn't give them a chance, but do not cozy up to the exorcists too quickly. The Ministry back then never knew if the exorcists would attack or not, so we don't know what may happen now…

Be careful,  
--Arthur Weasley

The trio of wizards looked at each other with expressions that clearly said, 'we are in such deep shit…'

That's when Ron handed them the photos of the damage and the remains of corpses the exorcists made, all of which moved, so the smoke and still-falling rubble was more visible, even after decades.

One photo had even captured a photo of an exorcist. A long white cowl was on his back, and a mask covered his face, so nothing of the person, who was presumably a boy, could be seen except for the cloak and the long, black, taloned arm. Right before he lashed out at a seemingly defenseless person, who exploded immediately. From what could be seen, it looked like the remains of a London street.

"Oh, damn," They muttered.


End file.
